Spiritual Food for Women

Grace

Part 2- Does grace give us the right to sin? Who gets access to God’s grace?

2 Timothy 1:9

8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God,

9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began…..”

Romans 6:1-4,15

1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 

2 Certainly not! How shall we who have died to sin live any longer in it?

3 Or do you not know that as many of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life.

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Certainly not!

Titus 2:11-14

11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 

12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,

13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

In part 1 of this study, I focused on how God’s grace has been here since before time began. I looked at several examples of how God’s grace worked in the lives of people in the Old Testament and connected that to us today. God’s grace was reaching out for us before time began! What a mind-boggling thought! Now I would like to focus on Romans 6:1-4, 15 and answer the question, does grace give us the right to willfully sin? I also want to use Titus 2:11 along with the verses in Romans to explain who is eligible to experience God’s saving grace. Is it for every person regardless of their actions, behavior, or lifestyle?

First of all, I want to say this very plainly……..grace is not a free pass to sin. This way of thinking is a blatant abuse of God’s grace. We can’t willfully sin and then say, “well God will forgive me because I have His grace”. God will forgive us, but not with that kind of attitude. The world has this attitude running rampant, thinking that it doesn’t matter what you do, that God’s grace will cover you no matter what. Sometimes we in the Lord’s church can get this mindset if we aren’t grounded in truth. I know I have been guilty of this kind of thinking in my younger days. I’m talking about continuing in willful sin and knowing day after day that you are doing wrong and just keeping on doing it without trying to change. I’m talking about planning ahead to do something that I knew was wrong, and then doing it anyway. Friends, this just isn’t logical at all. It is not logical that God’s grace would work this way. Paul hits this subject hard in Romans 6! He is writing to the Christians in Rome. He makes this perfectly clear in verses 1-2, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” And again for good measure in verse 15 Paul says again, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!” Paul says guys you died to sin when you were baptized into Christ and now you’re supposed to be walking in newness of life! (Romans 6:3-4) Walking in newness of life does not mean going back and forth from walking in darkness to walking in the light. That is lukewarm behavior and it is of the world. Do we all remember what Jesus said in Revelation 3:16 about people who are lukewarm in their Christianity? He says He will spew us out of His mouth because we are neither hot nor cold. We are lukewarm and are useless in His kingdom. Hot and cold water are both useful. Lukewarm water is useless. This is a wonderful analogy to show us that we can’t be useless in His kingdom and still expect to receive His grace. We are walking in darkness if we are lukewarm. We can’t walk in darkness on Friday and Saturday night and then attempt to walk in the light as we walk in the church building on Sunday morning. Friends, we can’t take advantage of God’s grace in a worldly way and think this gives us a pass to do anything we want. We are walking in darkness when we do this, not walking in the light. There is no stepping back and forth from light to darkness. We have to stay in the light. Hopefully, Romans 6 helps make my point clear on that. But…..what about people who are not Christians and are walking in darkness on the daily? How does Jesus want us to treat people who are living in sin? There is a really good case study about this very thing in John 8.

In John chapter 8, a woman who was caught in adultery was brought to Jesus by the scribes and Pharisees. They were ready to stone her according to the old law. Jesus was actually with a group of people in the temple teaching them. The scribes and Pharisees were actually trying to test Jesus to see how He would handle this situation. Of course, they would want to put Jesus on the spot in front of a group of people that He was teaching. They asked Jesus what He had to say about this woman and what should be done to her. How did Jesus handle it? Well first, He convicted the people who were ready to stone her by telling them they could only throw stones at her if they had no sin. Of course no one could throw a single stone because all have sinned. Even they knew that. So all of the scribes and Pharisees dropped their stones and went away. Then when He was alone with the woman he asked her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? She said, “No one Lord.” (John 8:10-11a) The next part of verse 11 is what I am really focusing on. “And Jesus said to her, ” Neither do I condemn you……” So here is grace coming from Jesus towards this woman caught in sin. But does Jesus stop there? No, He does not! Jesus has a stipulation. He says, “go and sin no more.” What does this tell us about grace? He forgave this woman, but He did not give her a free pass to go and continue in sin. This story is a wonderful example of how grace works for us today if we are in Christ. Now all of this happened in front of people as Jesus was teaching in the temple. Jesus then turned to the people and said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12) This was a wonderful thing for Jesus to say to the people after what happened with this woman. The woman had obviously been walking in darkness. No one can follow Jesus and walk in darkness. With the statement that He made to the woman in verse 11, he taught them to have compassion and love for others who are in sin, but not to accept and uphold their sin. He told her she was not condemned, but to stop what she was doing. This is a lesson for us today. In our world, sin is literally celebrated every day of the year, but especially this past month. But should we look down on or treat others who are living in sin with contempt and disrespect? No, we treat them the way Jesus treated the woman caught in adultery. We show them the same kindness that we would anyone else, but without condoning the sin they are in. We will never be able to reach anyone by being rude or disrespectful to them. The world says that in order to love others, we have to accept whatever way they want to live even if it is against what the Bible teaches. But this is not love. Love is trying to help others to not be lost for eternity by telling them the truth. Love tries to save people, not keep them in darkness. Grace is for every person who is willing to transform their life, and every person has the potential to change. I believe this because I believe that with God all things are possible. ( Matthew 19:26, Luke 1:37) Let’s never forget that so many have not had the opportunities that we have had to know God’s word. My Christian friends, let’s never take it for granted.

So….can I sin while walking in the light? Of course I can!! I do!! When I refer to “lukewarm” and “walking in darkness”, I’m not referring to mistakes we make because of our human weaknesses. We are not perfect and we are all going to sin. (Romans 3:23) Because of this fact, we need God’s grace. We may try our very best but still have weak moments where we simply just mess up. It happens to all of us sometimes. And…I know I do things wrong that I don’t even realize I’ve done!! Let’s face it, we all do. However, if we are truly “in Christ”, then we have God’s grace and we have Jesus’ blood which cleanses us daily of our sins as we strive to “walk in the light as He is in the light”. (1 John 1:7) Striving is the key. To strive means to make great efforts to achieve or obtain something. It also means to struggle or fight vigorously. Does this sound like a lukewarm Christian? In Luke 13:24 of NKJV Jesus says, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” Will we enter through that narrow gate if we are abusing God’s grace by being lukewarm, by trying to ride the fence between darkness and light? I think we all know the answer to that question. And boy have I ever been there, lukewarm I mean. I was absolutely useless in His kingdom and doing more harm than good at times in my life. I never want to be that person again. And because of Christ I don’t have to ever be in that bondage again. None of us have to. The freedom we feel because we are in Christ and have fully given everything in our lives over to Him is a freedom that the world just doesn’t understand. Christ and His sacrifice for us is the definition of God’s grace. And just a reminder, by “in Christ”, I mean people who are Christians, who have followed God’s plan of salvation and have been baptized into Christ for the remission of sins. “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Galatians 3:26-27) Please, if you are not in Christ, reach out for help to understand the truth of the gospel so that you can feel this freedom. And if you are in Christ, but are struggling to stay in the light with Jesus, please reach out for help as well, so that you can have complete freedom from the bondage of sin. I know what it’s like to feel the way you feel. You feel basically trapped. BUT, I now know what it feels like to finally break free and let Jesus do His work on me and heal me when I am broken. He is the Great Physician and He will put us back together when we are broken if we follow what He says in Matthew 11:28-30 where He tells us to come unto Him and lay all our burdens on Him and He will give us rest.

What does Paul mean in Titus 2:11? Let’s first remember that verse 11 says that God’s grace that leads to salvation has appeared unto all men. This means that God’s grace is available to every person on earth. And salvation is also available to everyone as well. God is no respecter of persons therefore the same opportunity for grace and salvation is offered to everyone. (Romans 2:11) 2 Peter 3:9 beautifully says that God doesn’t want anyone to be lost and that He is longsuffering toward us. Do we understand the word longsuffering? It is not just showing patience, but it is showing patience toward someone who has wronged us. We have wronged God with our sinfulness, but He is waiting on us to repent if we haven’t. What an amazing God and Father we have!! However, just because grace and salvation is available to me, does that mean I automatically receive it no matter what I do? Like Paul said in Romans 6:2, 15, certainly not!! Let’s use a simple worldly analogy. Tickets to a concert may be available but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get them and get into the concert. I have to first go through the steps to buy the tickets to get to go. In the same way of thinking, just because God’s grace that leads to salvation is available to me, doesn’t mean that I will automatically receive that saving grace and be able to enter heaven. I have to go through the proper steps of God’s plan to receive that grace that leads to the salvation of my soul so that I can then enter my heavenly home with God. The day we are baptized into Christ is when we receive salvation through the grace of God. We receive that grace that leads to salvation only because of what Jesus did on the cross for us. When we make the commitment to follow Christ, by completing God’s plan for salvation, with baptism being that final step, we are then eligible to receive God’s saving grace. Not before. Unless we have come into contact with Christ’s blood through baptism, we can’t accept God’s grace. It’s a process that we go through. Once we have accepted God’s grace on His terms, not ours, we then allow God’s grace to transform us as we grow and mature as Christians. The process for becoming a Christian is the same for everyone. The world disagrees with this, but we don’t follow the world, we follow God’s word. His word speaks of only one way to be saved. Now, as far as the process for maturing as a Christian goes, it is different for every person. God sees our efforts and is patient with us as we fall and get back up again over and over again in our Christian walks. Actually the maturing process continues throughout our entire life. We never fully mature because if we did, we would be sinless, like Jesus. The image of Jesus is our goal that we strive for every day. His image is what we are supposed to show the world. Oh how thankful I am to have Him as my example to follow and how thankful I am for God’s saving grace through Jesus. Here is a challenge if we need it and I feel like we all do sometimes. Let’s be hot or cold in our Christian walk starting this week my Christian friends, not lukewarm, so that we can walk in the light with Jesus and show the world how wonderful God’s saving grace can be. If we do, then maybe…..just maybe, someone we cross paths with will notice something different about us, and want to have the joy and freedom that we have. We never know who is watching or listening. Let’s show others Jesus this week!! I hope you all have a wonderful Lord’s day and a blessed week ahead. I truly appreciate all of you who read my blog! Please feel free to share!

Well friends, this post has turned into three parts. I will look at Titus 2:12-14 in my next post. Our question will be, “what does grace teach us?” We will look at how grace helps us to learn how to live the Christian life. It teaches us what to deny, what to look for, and what type of people God wants us to be. Grace is a powerful word and is at the heart of Christianity. Without grace, where would we be?

If you are someone who needs to obey the gospel, so that you can experience God’s saving grace through Jesus, the plan that you need to follow is below.

• We have to hear His word. (Romans 10:17) 
• Upon hearing the message of Jesus, we believe it. (Mark 16:16) 
• Then, we confess Jesus’ name before men. (Matthew 10:32) 
• Next, we repent of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19) 
• Finally, we are baptized into Christ for the remission of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:16, Romans 6:3-4, Acts 22:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:26-27) After baptism, God adds us to His church. (Acts 2:47)
• Then, we remain faithful in our commitment to Christ until death. (Revelation 2:10, 2 Peter 2:20-22)

Grace

Part 1- God’s Grace Transcends Time

2 Timothy 1:8-9

8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God,

9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began…..”

Titus 2:11-14

11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 

12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,

13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

What is grace?

Grace is an undeserved favor with God. It is something that can never be earned by our own merits. As Titus 2:11 says, this grace is offered (has appeared) to every human on earth, but it has to be accepted. Just because something has appeared to me does not mean I have it. I may have been shown it, but did I respond properly to it? Grace is a free gift, however when we are given a gift, does that gift do us any good if we don’t first accept it? And how do we accept God’s gift of grace? Our birthday gifts do us no good unless we accept them and claim them as ours. We must claim God’s gift of grace through Jesus Christ if we want the blessings found in that grace. We accept God’s grace when we complete God’s plan of salvation. We hear the word, believe that Jesus is God’s son, repent of our sins, confess Jesus’ name before men, and are buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk a new life in Christ. Then we must be faithful in our commitment to Him all of our lives. I have scriptures to back this plan up at the end of each of my posts. 

So when did God’s grace for mankind begin? Was it a switch that was turned on the day Jesus died on the cross? We know that Jesus died so that we can have access to God’s grace and have the opportunity to be in heaven for eternity. So was there grace before Jesus Christ died on the cross?

Let’s look at what Paul has to say about this in 2 Timothy 1:9, “…who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began…” Did you catch that? Grace in Christ Jesus began before time began! God always knew He would have to have a plan to save mankind from himself. He knew it before day one of creation. God’s plan to save mankind began in the mind of God before He ever said let there be light. 

God has always shown grace to His people. Grace is the common thread throughout the entire Bible. For example, Genesis 6:8, says that “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” The Bible says Noah was a just man and walked with God. (Genesis 6:9) Obviously Noah wasn’t perfect or he wouldn’t have needed God’s grace, but he was committed to living his life for God. 

God also showed grace to Abraham and Sarah when Abraham stretched the truth by saying that Sarah was his sister instead of his wife, because he was afraid for his own life. (Genesis 12:13) Abraham argued with God in Genesis 17:17-18 saying that he and Sarah were too old to have a child and for God to just let Ishmael be the son of promise. Imagine that, arguing with God! Then, Sarah laughed at God’s promise to give her and Abraham a son in their old age. (Genesis 18:12) But God still kept His covenant with Abraham even though Abraham took matters in His own hands instead of trusting God. Genesis 12:3b says, “And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Is this not grace that God is showing towards Abraham and Sarah? 

God even showed grace to Sarah’s handmaid, Hagar and her son Ishmael after Abraham had to banish her from the camp. (Genesis 21:17-21) God showed grace to this woman and her son who got caught up in the mess that Abraham made when he and Sarah didn’t trust God to keep His promise to them of having children. God knew it wasn’t Hagar’s or Ishmael’s fault that they had gotten put in the situation they were in and He had mercy on them and showed them grace. Genesis 21:17 says that God told Hagar to not be afraid and that He would make a great nation come from Ishmael. And then one of the sweetest verses that I noticed while studying this lesson is Genesis 21:20, “So God was with the lad; and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.” Can you just imagine God watching over this child that was not even the son of promise? What a wonderful God! Hagar and Ishmael were not even of the lineage of Christ in which God was trying to preserve but He cared for them and saved them anyway. If this doesn’t show us what kind of God we serve, I don’t know what else could. Is this not the epitome of grace?

And what about Joseph? To start with, it sure doesn’t look like God is showing grace when Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery. However, Joseph explains in Genesis 45:7 that God sent him before them to preserve a remnant for them in the earth and to save their lives by a great deliverance. I love what Joseph says in Genesis 50:20, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” God saved His remnant, the lineage of His Son, by letting Joseph be despised by his brothers, sold into slavery, thrown in prison, and then elevated to governor of Egypt through the providence of God. Sometimes bad things happen that lead to a good end. This is so hard for us to understand, but if we will just put our complete faith and trust in our Father in heaven, we will get through our trials. Just like Joseph, we will be able to bear whatever cross we have to carry because God will help us carry it. 

Then, we have Moses, who argued with God three times telling God to send someone else to deliver the people of Israel out of Egyptian slavery. And this was even after God turned Moses’ rod into a snake and then back into a rod! (Genesis 4) And the children of Israel, need I say more? They were in and out of God’s good graces all the time. They complained non-stop and were made to wander in the wilderness for 40 years because of a lack of trust in God. (Deuteronomy 8:2) But what did God do for them in the wilderness? He made sure they had water and food, manna and quail from heaven. (Exodus 17:6, Deuteronomy 8:3, Numbers 11:31) He even made sure their clothing and shoes did not wear out for the entire time they were wandering. (Deuteronomy 8:4) After the time of the judges, they wanted an earthly king because they wanted to be like all the other pagan cities around them. The God of heaven wasn’t good enough for them! God warned them of what would happen if they had an earthly king, but they didn’t listen to Him. (1 Samuel 8) Can you imagine not listening to God’s advice? This statement by God breaks my heart, “And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.” (1 Samuel 8:7) God said, give them what they want. They don’t want Me. After all the grace that God had shown to them and after all He had done for them, they wanted a man to rule over them instead of God! They followed after false gods and were carried into captivity and the list goes on and on of their shenanigans, but God still showed grace to them and preserved the lineage of His Son……not only for them, but for us!! We have Jesus as our Savior because of what God did back then. Let that sink in!

I have two more examples of people in the old testament to whom God showed grace and they are Rahab and David. God knows the hearts of men and women. He knows my heart. He knows your heart. He knows our motives in everything we do. I know He saw a good heart in these two people. Rahab was a prostitute, but she was willing to give shelter to God’s two spies in her home and ultimately saved their lives. She risked her life to save theirs because she believed in the God of heaven. God showed grace and mercy to her and she left that sinful lifestyle and served God the rest of her days. (Joshua 2) She is one of the women mentioned in the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1:5. Her example of faith is mentioned in Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25. How is that for God’s grace? And David, called a man after God’s own heart in 1 Samuel 13:14 and Acts 13:22, committed adultery and murder during a time in his life when he allowed himself to be drawn away from God. But God showed grace to David and forgave Him. We can see David’s heart and love for God in the inspired Psalms that he wrote. The grace of God has always been here, and it has gotten us to this point in history. God knew we had to have a Savior. And it had to be a sacrifice that would take away the sin of everyone from the beginning of time until the end of time. That sacrifice is Jesus Christ. The blood sacrifices of the old testament only rolled sins forward. They could not take sin away. 

So how does the grace that God showed people in the Old Testament compare to the grace God shows us today? Well, the grace part is the same. God showed them grace because of different reasons and the reasons are the same with us today. Maybe they tried their very best to follow Him when no one else was. This sounds like Noah. Maybe they truly repented when they were convicted of sin. This refers to Abraham, David, and the children of Israel. Maybe they trusted Him enough to turn to Him and cry out for help in times of great distress. This would be the example we see with Hagar. Maybe they risked their life for the purpose of God’s will and then turned from a sinful lifestyle to follow God the rest of their days. This sounds like Rahab to me. And then maybe they went through an entire life of ups and downs from slavery, to prison, to prosperity and never wavered in their faith in God. This sounds like Joseph. Maybe they had no confidence in their ability to do God’s will and resisted God’s purpose for them. This would be Moses. Christians all over the world today can fall into any of these categories. We all probably fall into one or more of them. I can see a glimpse of my own life story in a couple of these folks. I’m sure we all can. And then this……maybe they were used to carry out God’s purpose on this earth of saving mankind. This would be all of the above people and more. All of these people were used by God to preserve His Son’s lineage for us today, so that we would have the opportunity to have salvation through the sacrifice of His son. So is God using us to preserve anything today? Yes, He absolutely is!! He is preserving His church through us and it is up to us to train the next generation to allow God to use them and then they train the next generation and so on and so forth. Our purpose as Christians will never end until Christ returns. We cannot stop working for His purpose of saving souls no matter how bad we think the world is getting, no matter how far away from God the world seems, no matter how ugly things get, we DO NOT GIVE UP! God shows us grace as Christians, through our obedience to the gospel of Christ, because we are all imperfect sinners who can never earn salvation on our own. He does this not only because He loves us as Christians, but because He loves all of mankind. He is using us to reach others and convince them that they need His grace in order to be saved and to show them how they can tap into that grace through Jesus Christ and be with God for eternity. Are we all allowing Him to use us for His purpose with all our many talents and personalities? It’s a beautiful thing to be a Christian and fully embrace His purpose for our lives. We can do this only because of His grace. 

Did you ever wonder why God chose to make Jesus the sacrifice for our sins? When I was much younger, I had questions in my mind about God’s whole plan for us to be saved. I remember thinking, couldn’t He have saved us without sacrificing Jesus. He’s God. He can do whatever He wants. Why did He have to send Jesus to die? But that was just my immature mind trying to figure out the mind of God. And by the way, my mind is still immature. I’ve just grown enough spiritually that I don’t question His plan for us. At least I try my best not to question it. The point is, my questions don’t matter and your questions don’t matter. God is the Creator of the universe and His ways and thoughts are higher than my ways and thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)  I can never understand the “why” behind God’s plan of salvation from the beginning of time. All I know is that I am going to follow my Creator’s plan. I’m not going to try and change God into what I want Him to be or change His grace into something other than what it is. The world has decided that it can take care of itself without God’s plan, that it can decide right from wrong without consulting God, and that it can basically save itself. The devil has the world convinced that God is wrong, just like he convinced Eve that God was wrong when he said “you will not surely die”. Satan has convinced the world that it can make up its own god and that it can make their god’s rules up that, of course, are not in the Bible. It’s no different than when God’s people convinced Aaron to make the golden calf. The world’s version of god is not my God. As Joshua said, “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) The world can choose who it serves, but as for me, I’m serving the God who has shown me grace my entire life and has had a plan for me since the beginning of time, even when I was in sin and far away from Him. But let’s always keep in mind that everyone else in the world, no matter what walk of life they walk, has just as much right to hear the gospel and have the opportunity to receive God’s grace as I do. I’m no more deserving than anyone else. Let’s never forget that God is no respecter of persons. (Acts 10:34) Now whether they accept it or not is up to them, but they deserve the opportunity. 

Why did God show us grace through the sending of His Son to earth to die for us? I believe that He knew that He needed to make a statement of love toward us that was so amazing and so tremendous that it would transcend throughout all time until He sends His Son back again. And nothing else would show His love for us more than allowing His son suffer through humiliation and beatings and then die that cruel death on the cross. Jesus’ entire existence as a human on earth, from His birth, to His death, to His resurrection, is so profound in our history that our entire system of keeping time is based on Him. It’s either B.C., before Christ’s birth, or A.D., after Christ’s birth. A.D. actually means “anno domini”. This is latin for “in the year of our Lord”. Since Christ was raised from the dead, this means He is alive with God in heaven right now. So guess what, it is the year of our Lord, 2023. Have you ever thought about that? It’s 2023 only because Jesus was born 2023 years ago. Everything is under His authority whether we recognize that authority or not. So whether you accept God’s grace through obeying Jesus or not, it’s still 2023 friends, and it’s still all about Jesus, no matter what the world says. Let’s never forget that His grace was reaching forward to each one of us even then.

 This post has been about how God has shown grace to mankind since  before creation up to this point in time. In my next post, I will discuss what grace means for us as Christians today and we will dive into what grace actually teaches us about living the Christian life. I really hope everyone has a wonderful Lord’s Day and week ahead! I appreciate everyone who supports and reads my blog!

If you are someone who needs to obey the gospel, so that you can experience God’s saving grace through Jesus, the plan that you need to follow is below.

• We have to hear His word. (Romans 10:17) 
• Upon hearing the message of Jesus, we believe it. (Mark 16:16) 
• Then, we confess Jesus’ name before men. (Matthew 10:32) 
• Next, we repent of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19) 
• Finally, we are baptized into Christ for the remission of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:16, Romans 6:3-4, Acts 22:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:26-27) After baptism, God adds us to His church. (Acts 2:47)
• Then, we remain faithful in our commitment to Christ until death. (Revelation 2:10, 2 Peter 2:20-22)

Be Like-minded

Part 2- When and why did we become divided?

Why do people become divided in any situation? This usually happens when someone wants to do something different than what was originally agreed upon. In secular situations such as a business, this can be for the good of the situation sometimes if it will benefit employees or make the company stronger. However, it can be bad if it is taking benefits away from employees and causing division and chaos in the company. In a successful marriage, both husband and wife need to agree on most everything, all the major subjects anyway, religion, children, and money probably being the top three. There are always going to be minor disagreements, but as a couple they can work through those things. It’s one thing to try and change things in a company, or even in a marriage when dealing with a financial budget, but it’s another thing entirely to try and change doctrinal teachings or change the pattern of the Lord’s church. In the book of Acts, there was only one church. Jesus said in Matthew 16:18, “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it”. The “rock” Jesus was referring to in that verse was Peter’s confession that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. (Matthew 16:16) Jesus said He would build His church, singular. So what happened? Why are there all these different churches teaching different things?

To answer the question of when division in the church started, division started in the first century when the church was established, because Paul had to address it in 1st Corinthians and Galatians and it is still running rampant today. Jesus warned about the coming of false prophets who would come as wolves in sheep’s clothing. (Matthew 7:15) Whether they are called false prophets or false teachers, they have the same goal, to change God’s word and cause chaos and confusion. They may look harmless on the outside but gradually and with subtlety, they will try to establish their own will instead of God’s will. This is called self-imposed worship and it is preached against in Colossians 2:23. It is simply when people do something in worship that is not for God, but for themselves. Our will should not be entering into the worship of God. What we want does not matter. The verse says this type of worship has the appearance of wisdom but is of no value. In Romans 16:17-18, Pauls warns the Christians in Rome, “Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.” Paul said there would be people who would come along who would want to do things their own way. They would want to serve “their own belly”. He warned that they would be charismatic in their speech and would deceive people with flattering words. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 also addresses false teaching, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. Anything that is contrary to God’s word is a fable when it comes to religion and the church. They might say something like, “well God didn’t say we couldn’t do this, so that means it is ok to do it” or “this is not a salvation issue”. Friends, I’ve never read either of those statements in the Bible from God, Jesus nor the apostles. And remember, this all started in the Garden of Eden with Satan being the first false teacher. Remember how Satan deceived Eve in the garden? This is how he did it. He made her ears itch. He tickled her ears with things she wanted to hear. And he used one little three-letter word to finally convince her. He used the word NOT. He said to Eve, “You will NOT surely die.” Then it spread. Eve went and became a false teacher herself and told Adam what Satan told her and he believed her. This is how false teachers operate. They may change one word of the Bible and it can change the whole meaning of a verse. They get one person to believe it and then it spreads to another person and before you know it, it has overtaken thousands. But friends, let’s not forget that every word in the Bible is inspired and of the utmost importance. We can’t cherry pick what we want to follow, and we certainly cannot ignore things the Bible says that are made very clear. Some people seem to believe that we as humans can make worship better or more pleasing to people so that it will be more entertaining and draw more people in. But how can we improve upon what God ordained in His word through His apostles in the first century? And the church should not be in the business of entertaining people to get them to come. And what good does it do to draw thousands of people into our assembly when the entire truth of the gospel is not being preached? And is worship about me and what I want? Is worship about my entertainment? My emotions? My feelings? My wants? I believe everyone who reads this would answer that worship is about God and what He wants from us as His children. We should glean so much joy from worshiping our Creator, but we have to make sure that what we are doing is authorized by God and use His Word to guide us in our worship. After all, who is our audience during worship? Our Father in heaven is our audience!  

Does it matter to God how we do things in our worship? Does it matter to God how we claim to be saved from our sins? Let’s always remember that God is about details. God is specific. Look at all the specifics that He gave to Noah about building the ark. What if Noah had used a different kind of wood? Would he and his family have been saved? Look at all the specifics that He gave Moses about the building of the tabernacle. What if he hadn’t built to every specification that God instructed? Would God have accepted their worship if Moses hadn’t followed God’s instructions on how to build His house? Look at the specifics that God gave the children of Israel when they went into various battles. Do we remember what happened when King Saul didn’t fully obey God in the battle with Amalek? God took the kingdom from him. (1 Samuel 15) And also, in the battle of Ai when Achan took spoils and went against God’s instructions to utterly destroy the city, what happened in that battle and what happened to Achan? They lost the battle and Achan was killed. Remember Nadab and Abihu. What happened when they didn’t use the specific fire that God wanted for the altar? They were consumed by fire from the Lord. (Leviticus 10:1-2) Now…what happened at Jericho when the children of Israel did fully obey God? God’s people gained the victory!! (Joshua 6) The old testament is for our learning. (Romans 15:4) We can learn so much about God by studying the old testament. These examples show that God wants things done His way. If God was detailed and specific back in old testament times, would it not make sense that He would be detailed and specific now? Nothing about God has changed. He is our Creator and He wouldn’t give us His word for us to interpret it any way we see fit. Now I don’t say any of this to judge anyone else because I am certainly not the judge. And I am far from perfect and I need Jesus’ blood to cleanse me daily just as much as anyone else. Without Him I would be lost. No human on earth is the judge. Only God is the judge and His son is our mediator if we are in Him. I have no right to judge any other person because I am a sinner in one way or another, just like everyone else. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) However, I can judge or discern if certain behaviors, actions or words spoken are right/acceptable or wrong/unacceptable by using God’s word as my measure. The only way to really know what we should and should not do in any situation in this life is by studying God’s word and applying it to the situation. He wants us to be willing to spend time in His Word and not take any person’s word for what is acceptable and what is not. He wants us to rightly divide His word. (2 Tim. 2:15) This means we study it, keep it in context, teach the whole truth of it, and live it. After all, it is the standard and pattern that we should follow for salvation, for worship, and for our Christian walk through this life. 

Let’s take a look at what the apostles had to say about unity in the Lord’s church back in the first century. The church at Corinth had become divided on many things. First Corinthians was certainly written with tough love to the Christians at Corinth. Paul gets right to the point in 1 Corinthians 1:10, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” Paul is literally begging them to be unified. How can we be “perfectly joined together” if we are in disagreement on so many things? 1 Peter 3:8 says, “Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous.” Here the apostle Peter is calling for brothers and sisters in Christ to be of “one mind”. This verse is in direct opposition to any sort of division over doctrine. In Philippians 1:27, Paul again calls for Christians to be like-minded,  “Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel….” This verse calls us that are in Christ to “be worthy of the gospel of Christ” in our conduct. How do we be worthy? We stand fast in “one spirit” and “one mind”. We strive together for THE faith, singular! Paul, again in Philippians 2:1-2, “Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.”  If we are to have any blessings in Christ we have to be like-minded in the one true faith of the gospel. We have to be like-minded with Jesus and the apostles and be of one accord with what they taught us. And my favorite verses regarding oneness among Christians is found in Ephesians 4:4-6, “There is one body and one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” The “one body” that Paul is talking about is interchangeable with one church. The “one faith” is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The “one baptism” is the baptism into Christ for the remission of sins. (Acts 2:38) That one baptism is also how we call on the name of the Lord. (Acts 22:16) If you want a beautiful explanation of baptism, then go read Romans 6. The entire chapter explains the meaning of baptism and it is absolutely beautiful! The apostles preached for unity in the church and against division. And since we know that everything that the apostles wrote was inspired by God, we know that God Himself wants unity, not division. What else do we need to prove that unity is essential in the church? Finally, I want to present Galatians 1:6-7, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.” Here it is! Some of the Christians had turned away because they listened to false teachers. When did division start? It has always been a problem. Back then, it was mainly Judaizing teachers who were trying to get Christians to still keep the old law. For us today, it is a whole plethora of different doctrines and practices. Paul is expressing how surprised he is that these Christians are being confused or “troubled” by false teachers who are “perverting” or changing the gospel of Christ. Paul is very straightforward in Galatians 1:8 and 1:9 and says basically the same thing twice, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.” Wow! Paul says this very serious statement twice for good measure to make sure and get his point across. He says not to listen to anyone who tries to change the gospel of Christ, even if it’s an angel or even if it is Paul himself or those traveling with him! All of these verses in this paragraph make it very clear that God wanted unity in His church in the first century.  Why would He feel any different today? Nothing about God has changed and nothing about God’s plan has changed. Let’s look back at John 17:20-21 that I quoted in part 1 of this post. Jesus is praying for all who believe in Him to be one with Him and God the Father. This tells me that simply believing in Him is not enough. If that were true then this statement by Jesus wouldn’t have to be made. Jesus could see all this division coming. He knew it would happen. Being one in Jesus is more than saying we believe in Him. We have to obey Him. We have to live for Him. We all have to be like-minded in how we obey Him and live for Him. Jesus also gives the reason why we are to all be one. It is so people will believe in Him. He knew that the only way to truly save the world was through unity. When everyone is teaching something different, what are people supposed to believe? This confusion makes it harder for people to find the real truth. If everyone would just decide to follow the Bible without adding to it, taking away from it or twisting it to suit themselves, then we could have unity. Someone might say it’s impossible, but with God all things are possible. (Matthew 19:26)

To conclude on a personal note, I want to be somewhere that is giving me a book, chapter, and verse from God’s word, to prove that what is being taught is truth from God’s word and therefore is approved by Him. I don’t want to take any chances with my soul. And I don’t want to ever be afraid to speak up for the truth again, because that is what my Creator expects me to do. I used to be afraid to speak up for fear of offending someone. But….. I have to remember 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God hasn’t given me a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” I can’t be afraid to speak the truth in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16) I write about the truth of what the Bible teaches to the best of my ability, BECAUSE I love people. And if I truly know about Jesus who can save someone’s soul and I know what the Bible says we have to do to be saved and I don’t tell it, then I am not doing my part in taking the truth to the world. The religious world and the world in general expects us to accept doctrines and practices that the Bible simply doesn’t teach. Because we don’t, we are considered to be judgmental and rigid. According to the world, because we don’t accept sins that the Bible clearly condemns, we are accused of being intolerant and even hateful. I don’t judge or condemn, and I certainly don’t hate any person, however, I will not tell someone that what they are doing is right when it is not done with God’s authority or when the Bible straightout says it is wrong. So friends, please study and look for yourselves and don’t take chances with your soul. And certainly don’t take my word for it or trust feelings and emotions to guide you. Satan is deceitful and can use our emotions and feelings against us. Remember, he can appear to be an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14) We may feel like what we are doing is right, but does God’s word back it up?  Let’s use only the word of God because it is all we have in this world to guide us into all truth. (John 16:13) Jesus says to the woman at the well in John 4:23 that the true worshipers will worship God in spirit and truth, and He says that God is seeking those true worshipers to worship Him. Then in John 4:24 Jesus says, “God is a Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” One last question, are we worshiping in both spirit and truth? Only God’s word can measure whether we are or not. I hope I have given everyone who reads this post some food for thought. Should we be divided? Think about it honestly. Every post I write is something that is weighing on my heart and written with love for all of you who read it. 

1 Corinthians 16:14 “Let all that you do be done with love.”

Have a wonderful Lord’s day tomorrow and an awesome week ahead! Thank you so much for supporting me in my writing! 

Friends, here is God’s plan of salvation for anyone who needs to hear it:

• We have to hear His word. (Romans 10:17) 
• Upon hearing the message of Jesus, we believe it. (Mark 16:16) 
• Then, we confess Jesus’ name before men. (Matthew 10:32) 
• Next, we repent of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19) 
• Finally, we are baptized into Christ for the remission of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:16, Romans 6:3-4, Acts 22:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:26-27) After baptism, God adds us to His church. (Acts 2:47)
• Then, we remain faithful in our commitment to Christ until death. (Revelation 2:10, 2 Peter 2:20-22)

Part 1- Aren’t we supposed to be united?

Why does it seem like everything in the world demands unity except religion? Unity is defined as a state of being joined as a whole. It is also referred to as oneness. Other words that are interchangeable with the word unity are, harmony, agreement, accord, cohesion and many more. In the Bible, unity is referred to as like-minded, of one accord, all speaking the same thing, and simply just being one. 

In our careers and workplaces, we must “be a team player” or we won’t have a job for very long. I am a teacher and I teach reading intervention to kindergarten through 5th grade students. I work together with another lady in this position and we are like-minded in our purpose, which is to serve our children to the best of our abilities. We share all our materials and ideas. We do our lesson plans together. We respect each other as educators. There is no jealousy or competition between us. We just simply work to serve our children by building relationships with each child, working to instill confidence in each of them, and helping each of them improve in their reading skills. We also work closely with an interventionist assistant with whom we share everything. She also is united in purpose with us. It is the best working environment I could ask for. In the bigger picture, we work together with the classroom teachers to help them as well. Could we be an effective reading intervention team if we were not like-minded? In sports, division between players is not tolerated. There are five players on the court in a basketball game. Just imagine if three of the players were performing the coach’s game plan, but the other two were just doing whatever they wanted to do and paid no attention to the coach. This would be a disaster on the court. What about in a marriage? Do both husband and wife need to be on the same page about finances? What about disciplining the children? The answer is yes!! If husband and wife are divided on how money should be spent, then this causes friction between them. If they are divided on how to raise their children, then this not only causes friction between them, but it causes confusion for the children. So if unity is so important in all of these situations, then it must be important in religious matters and in the church. 

Is unity important to God/Christ? What does God/Christ say about unity? Jesus spoke of unity shortly before his arrest in John 17:20-21. “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” God and Jesus are one. Jesus performed the will of God because He was one with God. Their purpose was the same, to save mankind from sin. Jesus humbled Himself to perform that will of God by coming to earth to carry out God’s plan of salvation for all of us. Jesus told the Pharisees when He was accused of casting out a demon by Beelzebub that “every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.” (Matthew 12:25) If we who are in His kingdom, His church, are going to be like Him, then shouldn’t we all be one in Him? Of one accord? Like-minded?

And if we are all to be one in Christ, doesn’t this unity need to be based strictly on God’s word and not man’s opinion? I’ve heard people in the religious world say that everyone interprets the Bible differently, but this is not what the Bible teaches. No one says this about any other book that has ever been written. I can’t take a math book and come up with my own system of mathematics/numbers that is different from everyone else’s. I can’t say that two plus two isn’t four anymore just because I don’t want it to be. Math is math. The Bible is no different my friends. The Bible is the Bible. We either believe every word of it or we believe none of it. We either follow all of it or none of it. And the things that the religious world today differs on, are things that simply can only be interpreted one way. God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:33)  2 Timothy 3:16-17 is such a powerful scripture because it completely authenticates the scriptures as being inspired and complete, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” If the scriptures are so perfect, then how can they be interpreted all these different ways? God is perfect, therefore His word is perfect. Notice this says “all scripture” not “the scriptures we want to follow”. It also says that scripture is “profitable for doctrine”, singular, not doctrines, plural. We should only have one doctrine according to 2 Timothy 3:16-17. And all scripture is given for the purpose of the man (person) of God to be complete and able to perform every good work. God’s word is not of any private interpretation. (2 Peter 1:20) I feel that I would be showing disrespect for God’s word if I say that it can be interpreted in all these different ways. Why would God want that for His creation? He doesn’t want all of us disagreeing. He wants us to study and find the whole truth. He wants all of us to go back to Acts 2 and study what happened then, when the church was first established. What were they told to do to be saved? He wants us to study all Paul’s epistles that He wrote to the early congregations of the Lord’s church to see how things pertaining to worship and the church were conducted, so that we can follow that same pattern of worship as closely as we possibly can in our assemblies today. He wants us to go back and study the old testament and see God’s personality and how He dealt with the children of Israel when they did not follow Him. Do we think He has changed? Friends, He is unchanging. (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17) Jesus is unchanging. (Hebrews 13:8) God’s word is unchanging. John 1:1-2 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” Now let’s look at John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” These verses plainly say that God, Jesus and the Word, which is the Bible, are one and the same. This is why the Bible has stood the test of time. Throughout history, people have tried to destroy it, prove it to be false, and change the meaning of it, but God will not allow His word to pass away. (1 Peter 2:25, Matthew 24:35) God’s word is the only pure truth we have in this life. (John 17:17) Proverbs 30:5 says this so beautifully, “Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.” Why would the most important book in the history of the world be allowed to be interpreted any way man wants to interpret it? 

This leads me to try and answer a difficult question. Why is there division in religion? What has caused it? The cause is really simple. It’s the “why” that is difficult for me to understand. Someone simply decided to go away from the original pattern. The original pattern being the church that was established on Pentecost in Acts 2. That was the beginning. Then men wanted to put their own ideas into the church and this caused division. It’s still happening to this day. Someone simply decides to go away from what the Bible says on a subject. It can be any subject. Here are just a few subjects folks in the religious world are divided on:

What is baptism? Is it sprinkling infants, pouring water on a person’s head, or is it fully immersing someone in water? Is baptism essential for salvation? Are we saved before or after we are baptized? When and how often are we to take the Lord’s supper? What kind of music should be included in the worship? What day of the week do we assemble for worship? Whose name should the church wear? What does the Bible say about divorce and remarriage? Is drinking alcohol something a Christian should engage in? What does the Bible say about modesty? Are alternative lifestyles biblical? Is it ok to live together outside of marriage? Is it really necessary to attend all the Bible study and worship services? Are there spiritual gifts in this day and age, such as speaking in tongues, miracles, prophesying, etc?

These are only a few things that people disagree on and there are many more. Personally, all I can say about all of these questions is this, I never want to try to guess what God is ok with or not ok with. God tells us what he wants us to do in his word, either by command or by showing us an example or a pattern. I also never want to think that just because it makes me feel good that God is ok with it also. Oh have I been guilty of this in my past, guilty of trying to justify sin. Nor do I ever want to twist the scriptures to make them mean what I want them to mean to suit my particular lifestyle or someone in my family’s or friend’s lifestyle. Again, guilty! It’s easy to get caught up in the world and become accepting of man’s ideas of right/wrong and acceptable/unacceptable instead of using God’s word to determine these things. This happens if we allow ourselves to be more influenced by the world than by God’s word. I have been there. I know how easily this can happen. So my advice from experience is this, start spending more time with God each day. Keep yourself grounded in Him. I promise you that the more time you spend in God’s word, the more time you will want to spend in it. The desire for His Word grows. It becomes such a joy if you put your heart into it. It will become nourishment that you want and need daily. You will look forward to getting into God’s word each day and you will look forward to worship and Bible study services with your brothers and sisters in Christ all the more because you have been in the Word daily. It doesn’t matter how much time you spend in God’s word each day. Obviously, everyone has more time some days than others. But whatever the time you have, it will be quality time with God. What matters is you are in it, you are focused, and you are letting it guide every step you take. 

Now obviously, I am not going to address all the above questions that people are not unified on in this post. Each one of those questions would have to be a post all its own. However, I ask you to get into God’s word yourself, with an honest heart, and search for yourself. Go search those subjects that I listed above and see where the Bible stands on them, honestly and with an open heart. When you go to your assembly on Sunday, look into God’s word and see if what you are doing was being done in the first century church. That church should be our pattern. Listen and discern what you are being told to see if it is actually the truth, the whole truth of the gospel. If you aren’t in the habit of attending an assembly for worship, please find one that lines up with God’s word. If you need help with this, please reach out. I can help you or I can put you in contact with someone who can help you. With only love in my heart, I ask you not to just assume what God wants or take a person’s point of view without truly testing it to see if it is scriptural. Humans have no authority to add to or take away from God’s word.

Can we add what we want and take away what we don’t want from God’s word? The Bible is very clear on adding to and taking away from God’s word. In Deuteronomy 4:2 God says, “You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”Also, Revelation 22:18-19 plainly says, “For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” So the old and new testaments both have scriptures condemning adding to and taking away from God’s word. What else do we need? Not adding to and taking away from God’s word must be super important because it is some of the last inspired verses we have in God’s word. It is a stern warning and it’s scary to me. Why take chances? Friends, I’m going to end with that question for this week.

 I will post part 2 of “Be Like-minded” next week. Please come back and read the rest next week. This started out as one post and turned into two once I got into it. This subject has weighed on my heart for a really long time. I write all my posts out of love for others in all walks of life. Hope everyone has a wonderful Lord’s Day and a wonderful week! Thank you for reading!

1 Corinthians 16:14 “Let all that you do be done with love.”

Friends, here is God’s plan of salvation for anyone who needs to hear it:

• We have to hear His word. (Romans 10:17) 
• Upon hearing the message of Jesus, we believe it. (Mark 16:16) 
• Then, we confess Jesus’ name before men. (Matthew 10:32) 
• Next, we repent of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19) 
• Finally, we are baptized into Christ for the remission of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:16, Romans 6:3-4, Acts 22:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:26-27) After baptism, God adds us to His church. (Acts 2:47)
• Then, we remain faithful in our commitment to Christ until death. (Revelation 2:10, 2 Peter 2:20-22)

What is the relationship between what we think and what we say? The Bible speaks of our tongue being a fire in James 3:6. It says that our tongue can be a “world of iniquity”, and it can “set on fire the course of our lives”, and finally our tongue can be “set on fire by hell” if we do not tame it somehow. Basically this is saying that our tongue can ruin our lives and the lives of others while we are here on this earth and it can cause us to be lost for eternity.

But where do our words come from? Nothing can come out of our mouths unless we first think about it, and then let it take up residency in our minds. Now this can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what we allow our minds to dwell on. Can we control what pops into our minds all the time? No, we can’t. Sometimes we think things that we should not think. Maybe someone hurt us and we get bitter towards that person. Maybe we watch something on TV or in a movie that we should not watch and it causes us to have impure thoughts. Some of these images are sometimes very hard to get out of our heads. This can even lead to an addiction. Maybe we get jealous of another person’s success and this causes us to think negatively about that person simply because they have something that we don’t. And……..by the way, these negative and destructive thoughts can be about ourselves for various reasons…… negative words people say to us, negative or even traumatic things from our past, or things we have done in our past that we can’t seem to forgive ourselves for. Personally, being negative towards myself has been a major problem for me. It became a habit for me at a young age. It was a very hard habit to break and I have to keep myself in check at all times or I’ll slip back into that negative self-talk again. It could be a number of things that cause us to get negative or destructive thoughts in our mind. We are only human. However, we can’t allow those thoughts to dwell in us and become a permanent part of our thoughts. When we allow those types of thoughts to set up camp in our minds, they turn us into someone that God does not want us to be. Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he”. So how does all this relate to our tongue?  Is it a safe assumption that if we let thoughts such as jealousy, hatred, envy, filth, and such like, make a home in our minds, that they are likely to eventually come out of our mouths at some point? Of course they are! The only way to control our tongues is to first take control of our thoughts. 

So James 3:6 has established that our tongue can cause us to be lost. How about our thoughts? I mean if I don’t let it come out of my mouth, I should be fine, right? Can our thoughts cause us to be lost? Absolutely! God sees our thoughts whether we speak those thoughts or not. Proverbs 21:2 says “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts”. The word heart here actually means mind. And Psalm 139:2 says that God “understands my thought afar off”. We can’t hide our thoughts from God. And one more, Psalm 94:11, “The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile”, meaning that compared to the thoughts of God, our thoughts are useless. Remember Genesis 6:5, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” We know what happened to the people during Noah’s day because of, not only their wicked ways, but their wicked thoughts as well. It was so bad that God decided to basically start over, with Noah and his family being the new beginning of mankind after the flood. Let’s also remember that Jesus spoke about people in Matthew 15:8 who “draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.” He said many times in the New Testament that he knew people’s thoughts. (Luke 9:47, Matthew 22:18) Since Jesus was God in the flesh, it makes sense that he could know people’s thoughts. We have examples from the Old and New Testaments of God the Father and God the Son knowing people’s thoughts.

So can we as humans control our thoughts and tame our tongue? James 3:8 says that no man can tame the tongue and that it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. The things we say can be poison to other people around us. Our tongue can cause others to be lost along with us. So is it hopeless? I mean, the inspired writer, James, just said that no man can tame it. The key phrase we need to focus on here is that he says “no man” can tame the tongue. If we are truly in Christ, then we have the mind of Christ, according to 1 Corinthians 2:16. Therefore Christ controls our thoughts and our tongue if we let Him. We cannot do it without Him. Will we still fail sometimes? Yes we will! Like I have said before, negative thoughts pop into our minds. Our brains work so fast that we can’t control incoming thoughts. This is just something that happens sometimes before we can stop it. The fact is, we have to live IN this world, and because of this fact, sometimes by no fault of our own, we are exposed to things that cause us to think negative, destructive, or even impure thoughts. And sadly, we sometimes make the mistake of allowing ourselves to be exposed to these things by choice. But as Christians, we are not OF the world. (John 15:19) We are OF Christ and His kingdom/His church. And because of this, Satan works very hard to make sure we struggle with our thoughts and words. He wants to put temptations in front of us so that he can take over our minds through negativity and impurity. This is an area where he knows he can get to us if we are not diligent to take care of our minds. So how do we take care of our minds? Well first we have to be in Christ to truly be able to get our minds right. If we are in Christ, we can train ourselves to immediately replace that negative thought that Satan wants us to hold on to, with a truth from God’s word. We can capture that thought before it makes a home in our mind. I present to you 1 Corinthians 10:5, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” This verse gives me such hope and encouragement because it tells me that through Christ, I can capture every thought that shouldn’t be there, if I’ll just recognize those unhealthy thoughts. Notice, it doesn’t say that we shouldn’t ever have these thoughts because we will have them. It is impossible not to have them because we are human. However, it says we can capture them and replace them with God’s word. When we do this, we bring our thoughts in submission to the “obedience of Christ”. Then, those thoughts never have a chance to come out of our mouths and hurt others or bring shame on the Lord’s church.

Ok, so how do we replace these thoughts that come across our minds so that we can, in turn, control our tongues? Well first, we MUST have our daily spiritual food if we are truly going to battle against Satan and these potentially destructive thoughts. We have to get in God’s word each day. We need several “go to” verses either in our minds or on our person for when these thoughts/battles come. I actually have a spiral book of index cards in my purse with my “go to” verses in it. It helps me to have them readily available. If you would rather have them on your phone, you could make a google doc or put them in the notepad app. How do we find these “go to” verses? A very common verse that most of us raised in Sunday school memorized as children is 2 Timothy 2:15, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” We need to know the Bible to battle Satan for control of our thoughts and words. We have to make time to listen to God through reading and studying His word, even if we only have a few minutes some days. Some of us spend lots of time on our phones and watching Netflix. I know I do. Could we all discipline ourselves to cut back on those things for time with God? I’m not at all saying that it is wrong to enjoy these forms of entertainment as long as we are making time for God each day, and as long as our form of entertainment doesn’t allow Satan to take control of our thoughts. Because that is exactly what he wants……..control of our minds and our mouths. When Satan can get in a member of the Lord’s church’s mind and get him to influence other members in a negative way, can you imagine what a victory that is for him? Satan already has the world in the palm of his hand with no work at all. He is concentrating on getting a hold on us in subtle ways that we don’t realize, through our thoughts. Let’s never forget, one minute Satan is a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour (1 Peter 5:8) and the next minute he can make himself look like an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). 

Am I guilty of negativity? I am so guilty. It breaks my heart to think about all the ways I’ve been a negative influence in my past to friends outside of Christ and even to my family, including my husband and children. Satan had a hold of my thoughts for a time. But I’m working on keeping those thoughts out of my mind and focusing on my future in Christ. No more beating myself up. I can’t change the past but I can decide how I will behave in the future.  God has forgiven me, so it’s time to forgive myself. We will all have slip ups. I had one this past week. I let something negative come out of my mouth. I felt it immediately………the guilt and the feeling of failure. I have been in God’s word so much lately that I immediately knew I had messed up and let a negative thought come out of my mouth. You see, if we aren’t in God’s word enough, we won’t recognize our negative thoughts and words as clearly and quickly and we may not even realize that we need to make it right. I immediately went back to the two people I was with when I said it and apologized, then came home and renewed my mind with God’s word, and prayed and asked Him to forgive me and help me to do better in the future. I love Romans 12:2 because it says we can transform and renew our mind, “And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” I could not let those negative thoughts I was having continue to take up residency in my mind. I had to capture those thoughts and replace them with truth from God’s word.  Oh and I’ll mess up again. We all will. We wouldn’t need a Savior if we were perfect. Thank goodness for Jesus’ love for us. It’s how we handle our “mess ups” that matters. Do we let them build up in our minds and make us feel defeated? No! We have God’s word to renew us and Christ’s blood that cleanses us daily. We have His cleansing blood as long as we have completed God’s plan for salvation and been baptized for the remission of our sins and are living faithful to Him. (Acts 2:38, Revelation 2:10) Romans 8:37 lets us know who we are through Jesus, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” We are “MORE than conquerors” friends! We can conquer those negative thoughts and, in turn, conquer our tongue through Jesus Christ our Savior. When God’s word says we are more than conquerors if we are in Jesus Christ, then there is no reason to feel defeated when we make a mistake. We just renew our minds with God’s word, pray to Him for forgiveness and resolve to try and not make that mistake again.

In closing, our ultimate goal as Christians is to do our best to help God’s kingdom here on earth, the Church, to grow so that more and more people can feel the “peace that surpasses all understanding” that will “keep (guard) our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”. (Philippians 4:6) Christ will keep/guard our minds if we allow him to. What a comforting THOUGHT!! Every sin starts with our thoughts. Everything that comes out of our mouths begins in our minds. Thoughts can lead to words and words can then lead to positive outcomes or negative outcomes. Will we allow Christ to control our thoughts or will we allow Satan to control them? Will we train our brains through studying God’s word so we can capture those negative/destructive thoughts and replace them with God’s truth, before they take up residency in our minds and then come out of our mouths? To everyone who reads this, I believe in you! You can do this! Positivity in life is so much more satisfying and joyful than negativity! And the world needs to see us, members of Christ’s church, being positive in our words and actions as much as possible. We want them to want what we have. Friends, I leave you with this verse to ponder and dwell on, Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things.” Capture the bad and throw it out! Meditate on the good! If we follow Philippians 4:8 in our thinking, then those are the types of words that will roll off of our tongue, and that will be a victory for God, Christ, His church and for us. 

Thank you for your support of my blog!! Hope everyone has a wonderful Lord’s day tomorrow and a blessed week ahead!!

Friends, here is God’s plan of salvation for anyone who needs to hear it:

• We have to hear His word. (Romans 10:17) 
• Upon hearing the message of Jesus, we believe it. (Mark 16:16) 
• Then, we confess Jesus’ name before men. (Matthew 10:32) 
• Next, we repent of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19) 
• Finally, we are baptized into Christ for the remission of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:16, Romans 6:3-4, Acts 22:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:26-27) After baptism, God adds us to His church. (Acts 2:47)
• Then, we remain faithful in our commitment to Christ until death. (Revelation 2:10, 2 Peter 2:20-22)

Colossians 3

Key Verse of Focus- Colossians 3:17 “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

This is one of the verses that has caught my attention just in the last few months. This verse is more than just a verse. If I dig in and really study this verse, THIS VERSE IS THE CHRISTIAN LIFE!!! The more that I am in God’s word, the more that I take notice of verses and what they mean to my life. I keep reiterating this in my posts, because I used to struggle so much with Bible study. I could not stay consistent. Some days I still struggle. So if you struggle with staying consistent in Bible study, you are not alone. I think it requires each person to figure out what works for her/him as far as studying goes. Writing helps me study. I love connecting verses with other verses and ideas with other ideas. Writing about Bible verses and what they mean to my life, helps me to work through them, research them, and understand them. I can look at my life and see if I’m putting into practice what I am reading and then write about ways to better myself. And I figure if I’m struggling with something, then chances are, some of you are struggling with it as well. It really doesn’t matter how you study as long as you set aside time for it. And it really isn’t about quantity. It is about quality. One person might read the Bible for an hour and not be able to tell anything about what they have read and get nothing out of it. Another person might focus for 15 minutes on one verse and glean so much more. I started this post out by talking about personal Bible study, because as you will see as we go forward, we cannot do what Colossians 3:17 says for us to do without personal Bible study. So with all that being said, I have some questions for myself and for you, my friends.

Do I do what the verse above says? Is everything I say and do, said and done in the name of the Lord Jesus? And what does this actually mean? Also, can I live out this verse if I am not in God’s word on a regular basis?

To understand our key verse of focus we will need to look back at Colossians 3 as a whole. First of all, just a reminder, Paul is writing to the “saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse”. (Colossians 1:2) He is writing to all Christians, past and present. I am writing about these verses as if they are written to us today, because they absolutely are written to us today!! The first nine verses of Colossians 3 are focusing on putting off the old man of sin after we are raised with Christ. Paul starts this chapter by saying, “if then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above”. This is a direct correlation to baptism, because we are raised with Christ when we come up out of that watery grave of baptism. So if we are truly Christians, raised with Christ from the watery grave of baptism, then we have to put off our old person and put on the new person, that being the image of Christ. In Colossians 3:2, Paul encourages Christians to “set your minds on things above, not on things of the earth”. We are to be spiritually minded, not worldly minded. And then in Colossians 3:3, Paul really gets my attention. He says, “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God”. We died to our old life of sin when we were baptized into Christ and we rose to walk in “newness of life”. (Romans 6:4) This verse explains this beautifully, “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life.” We left our old sinful self in the watery grave. Just thinking about how we are “hidden with Christ in God” makes me feel completely safe and secure. John 1:18 says that Christ is in “the bosom of the Father”. So that means we are with Christ in the bosom of the Father in complete security. This is so comforting!! However, Paul doesn’t sugarcoat things for the Christians at Colosse or for us today!! He makes it plain that in order for us to set our minds on things above, like verse 2 tells us, we have to put away a whole list of sinful practices found in verses 5, 8 and 9. These include, fornication, uncleanness, evil desires, covetousness, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language and dishonesty. These Christians at Colosse had “once walked” in these ways before putting them off. (Colossians 3:6) Some people were probably still hanging on to some of these sinful practices after baptism, and this may be why Paul was addressing this. We have to leave those worldly sinful practices behind after we become Christians. And we all struggle sometimes to keep our old sinful ways out of our lives. Sometimes they want to creep back into our lives. I know I have struggled with my own temptations. We all do in one way or another. But God made a way for us to be forgiven. He sent Jesus, His own Son. I’m so thankful every day to Him for loving all of us so much. If we are in Christ, we need only ask for forgiveness and His blood cleanses us immediately. Then of course, we try our best not to get caught up in sin again. However, when we stumble, God will take us back an infinite number of times. What an awesome God we serve!! So my Christian friends, according to the first eleven verses of Colossians 3, in order to do what verse 17, our key verse, tells us to do, we must put off the sinful man with all those sinful practices, and set our minds on things above “where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God”. (Colossians 3:1)

So what do we replace our old man with? What practices do we put in place after we are risen with Christ? What does Colossians 3:17 mean? Christian friends, it is only logical that we are to put off a whole list of sinful practices when we put off our sinful self. But……it is also logical that we should put on some new practices when we put on our new self, that being the image of Christ. After all, we are to be Christ-like now that we are Christians. We exchange the bad for the good. In Colossians 3:12, Paul calls us “the elect of God, holy and beloved”. This means we are chosen by God, set apart and dearly loved. When did we become the elect of God? We became the elect of God when God added us to His church after we chose to be baptized for the remission of our sins. (Acts 2:47) Wow! Shouldn’t we be so honored that the Creator of the universe has chosen us? We should never take this for granted, my friends. Because we are the elect of God we are to “put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, and longsuffering”. (Colossians 3:12) These take the place of all the sinful practices we put off. But that is not all. We as a Christian family are to bear with one another and forgive one another as Christ forgave us. (Colossians 3:13) Forgiving others is not an option. The words Paul uses are strong. He says, “so you also MUST do”. (vs 13) This can be tough sometimes when someone does us wrong, but God does not expect us to do things that we are not capable of doing. He does not give us more than we can handle. (1 Corinthians 10:13) Therefore we can do it, even if it is hard.  Especially….. since we have the mind of Christ, which we do if we are in Him. (1 Corinthians 2:16) This brings up questions for us. Can we lose the mind of Christ? How do we lose it? How do we keep the mind of Christ? To answer these questions, yes we can lose the mind of Christ when we become unfaithful and when we become more a part of the world than of Christ, when we set our minds on things of the world instead of things above. We keep the mind of Christ by remaining faithful to Him and not forsaking the assembly for worship and bible study. (Hebrews 10:25) This is a command for all Christians. But that’s not all. Let’s go back to what I started this post with, we have to be in God’s word daily if we want to have the mind of Christ. Personal bible study is so important to our spiritual growth. It is also a command. Without it, we will be stagnant. (2 Timothy 2:15)  Studying God’s word will help us have the mind of Christ and then, in turn, help us to fulfill Colossians 3:17. 

So what is the one thing that Paul mentions that we have to “put on” that is above all of the others? It is love. Why is love above everything else? Because without love, none of the other words mean anything. Without love, there is no mercy, no kindness, no longsuffering, no forgiveness, or any other fruit of the spirit. This is probably why love is mentioned first among the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. Nothing we do matters without love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 makes this idea very plain, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Love is everything when it comes to being a Christian. We have to speak the truth to others in love. We have to love other people, the saved and the lost, so much that we are willing to tell them the truth even when it hurts. Would I rather them get mad at me for not just agreeing with them or them be lost for eternity? You’ve heard the term tough love? Paul says, “But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.” (Colossians 3:14) Love is the foundation for everything in the bible and do you know why? Because God is love. 1 John 4:8 says, “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Also 1 John 4:16, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” If God wasn’t pure love, we wouldn’t have Jesus. Love is the reason Jesus came to earth and died so that we can be saved if we choose to obey Him and live our life for Him. Paul calls love the “bond of perfection”. (vs 14) Love is what bonds we who are in the body of Christ, the church, together in perfection. Love makes it all complete. Love is the glue that holds everything else together. If God is love and Christ is love, then shouldn’t the church be love? No matter what good deeds we do in our congregation or personally in our own lives, they have to be done in love and humility. Not to be seen by men or to look better than someone else. This is not love. We are concerned with saving souls if we are doing things in love. This is our purpose and the reason we are the “elect of God”. (vs 12) Therefore, because we are truly in Christ, we can have peace from God. (Colossians 3:15) If we have put on Christ in baptism and we have put on love, we have nothing to worry about. Everything will fall into place in our Christian walk. Think about it. If we truly love others, then we will do all those things in verses 12 and 13. Love brings peace to our lives. It is the greatest feeling of peace to know that I am a child of God, that I am chosen by God, and that God wants me with Him. 

Verse 15 also says we are called in one body, which means one church, and for us to be thankful for that. I am so thankful that I am in that one body, the body of Christ, the church. This leads into Colossians 3:16 which is a super important verse concerning the church and worship. Because we are members of Christ’s body, the church, we are to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly in all wisdom. I need to know the Bible so well that it is in me and in everything I do. The word of God should “dwell in me” continually and “richly” or abundantly. How can this happen if I don’t dig into the Bible? The phrase “in all wisdom” means unto all wisdom. To have true wisdom, I have to dwell in God’s word. Since Colossians 3:16 may be a verse that I write more about in another post, I will be straightforward. It says we are to teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and to sing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Colossians 3:16) Where would the teaching and admonishing one another through singing be happening? Obviously, this would be in the assembly of the Lord’s church. We are, of course, singing praises to God, but we are also singing to teach and admonish one another. I love the word admonish. It means to put in mind, to caution, to reprove gently, or to warn. Isn’t this what the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs do for us if we are truly focusing on them?

So how does this chapter lead into our focus verse, Colossians 3:17? Everything that we do in our Christian lives from how we are saved to how we formally worship and even to how we go about our daily lives should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, with God in mind. Our repentance and baptism has to be in the name of the Lord. Acts 2:38 says, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” And repentance and baptism are only the beginning of our commitment. When we pray, we pray in Jesus’ name because He is our Savior and mediator. Everything we do in our worship to God has to be done in the name of the Lord Jesus. The prayers, the preaching of the Word, the Lord’s Supper, the singing of praises, and the giving of our means is to be done according to God’s word if it is to be done “in the name of the Lord”. If something we are doing in worship is not authorized in the Bible, then it can’t be “in the name of the Lord Jesus”. 

In our daily lives, we need to make decisions about what we get ourselves involved in and base those decisions on the name of Jesus Christ. Is this pleasing to God? Is this what God wants from me? Am I glorifying God? While we are here on earth, we have recreational/secular things that we enjoy, such as sports, music, vacations, concerts, exercising, art, cooking, movies, etc. We also have secular jobs in the world. It is perfectly fine to enjoy these activities, as long as they don’t become idols and interfere with our Christian walk. We have to guard against that at all times. If we are making good choices, then we can glorify God in whatever we are doing simply by how we conduct ourselves in every situation we are in and by how we treat other people. Of course, we need to make wise choices in our Christian walk about where we go. But we don’t have to completely hide ourselves away. The world needs to see us making the right choices wherever we go. The world needs to see us showing love to others and putting God first. The world needs to see Christ in us. We need to let our light shine!! We separate ourselves from sin, but let our light shine for the world. (Matthew 5:16) We are also to be thankful to God in everything we do and know that everything good in our lives, including all of our favorite places, our favorite activities, our hobbies, our talents……all of it comes from God. Everything fun that we enjoy has come about because God has given someone the ability to form the idea and create it. On a personal note, God allowed someone to come up with the sports of basketball and tennis and I am so thankful for that because I enjoy them so much!! I love certain genres of secular music that God gave man the talent to create!! God also created the beach, my favorite place to vacation!! God wants us to enjoy our lives in front of the world, so that they will want what we have……which is peace in Jesus. 

So, back to the questions we started out with:

Do I do what the verse above says? Is everything I say and do, said and done in the name of the Lord Jesus? And what does this actually mean? Also, can I live out this verse if I am not in God’s word on a regular basis?

Hopefully we can answer these questions with honesty and sincerity in our hearts. I soooo needed this study. Let’s look at Colossians 3:17 in a new way, my Christian friends, and let our words and actions be done in Jesus’ name for the world to see. Let’s show everyone how blessed we are!!

Hope everyone has an awesome Saturday, a wonderful Lord’s day and a great week ahead!! Thanks to everyone for reading my blog!! 

Friends, here is God’s plan of salvation for anyone who needs to hear it:

• We have to hear His word. (Romans 10:17) 
• Upon hearing the message of Jesus, we believe it. (Mark 16:16) 
• Then, we confess Jesus’ name before men. (Matthew 10:32) 
• Next, we repent of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19) 
• Finally, we are baptized into Christ for the remission of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:16, Romans 6:3-4, Acts 22:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:26-27) 
• God adds us to His church. (Acts 2:47)
• Then, we remain faithful in our commitment to Christ until death. (Revelation 2:10, 2 Peter 2:20-22)

Part 3- Waiting on the Lord

Lamentations 3:21-26

21  This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.

22  Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.

23  They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

24  “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”

25  The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.

26  It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.

In part one, I focused on verse 21 and the hope that Jeremiah found in God when he was in terrible grief. Last week in part two, I looked at verses 22 and 23 at God’s mercy, compassion and faithfulness. The hope that I find in Jesus Christ is new every morning as I continue in my daily Christian walk. God’s mercy, compassion and faithfulness are new every morning as I am given another day to serve Him and give my life to Him. Now I would like to look at verses 24 through 26 and begin with “The Lord is my portion, says my soul, Therefore I hope in Him!” Look at the expression that Jeremiah uses at the end of this verse. An exclamation mark shows Jeremiah’s excitement and true hope in his God and Creator!!

So what does Jeremiah mean when he says that the lord is his portion? Jeremiah is counting on God to be his “portion”. In the old testament everyone got a portion of the inheritance except for the tribe of Levi. They were the tribe of the priesthood and were not a part of the inheritance divided between the tribes, however their needs were taken care of by all the other tribes put together. Jeremiah was of the priesthood so he did not have an earthly inheritance so to speak. And since God’s people were either killed or taken into captivity by the Babylonians at this time, there was no one left to take care of the needs of anyone much less the priests. Jeremiah is again reaffirming his hope in God. His portion is God and he remembers this at his low point. His remembrance of this fact begins to bring him out of his depression. Deuteronomy 10:9 reminds us that “Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, just as the Lord your God promised him.” We can apply this concept to us today. We have a spiritual portion if we are in Christ. We are joint heirs with Christ which is an amazing thought to me!! It’s hard for me to wrap my head around that!! We are children of God. Jesus was God’s son so that makes us joint heirs to all God’s blessings with Christ. Listen to Romans 8:16-17, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” And I have to mention Galatians 3:26-29 which explains this beautifully, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” If we are in Christ, we are heirs with God’s Son, Jesus Christ!! We are in Christ if we have been baptized into Him for the remission of our sins. So just like Jeremiah, God is my portion!! And He is my hope through Jesus Christ because I am in Him. What a blessing! How absolutely perfect!

In verse 25, Jeremiah continues to reassure himself that God is good. He tells himself that if He seeks God and waits patiently for His will, that everything will work out for the good. It’s like he is saying, “God is with me. I got this. I will get through this.” It’s hard to wait on something that we want so badly though, isn’t it? We want all the good things to happen just when we want them to happen. However, nothing in this world is on our timetable. It’s God’s timetable that everything is based on and has been since the beginning of time itself. We always need to remember that God’s timetable is perfect. He allows His will to unfold according to his eternal plan. Our minds can’t comprehend his timetable. Jesus himself said in Acts 1:7 before His ascension into heaven, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.” This was after Jesus had been asked by His disciples if He would at that time restore the kingdom to Israel. (Acts 1:6) So even at that time, they were not told everything. They were told only what God deemed important for them to know. It is this way with us. We don’t know what the future holds, but we know God holds the future. And as we wait on the Lord we just have to remember Romans 8:28. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” This verse is one that helps me let go of worry and anxiety about the future. It also helps me to know that everything is in God’s control and if I just love and obey God, then I can get through any trial that I have to face. This is what Jeremiah is saying also. He knows that God is good to those who seek Him and wait on Him. In order to wait on the Lord, we have to have faith. Hebrews 11:6 says this so beautifully, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” To wait on Him means that we have faith that He will do everything He promises, and that He will make everything work out for the good no matter what happens. But we can’t ever forget that we have to seek Him. How do we do that? Romans 12:2 tells us how to do that. We “renew our minds” with God’s word daily. We are not seeking Him if we are not in His word. I remind myself of this all the time. We find God in His Holy Word. Jeremiah 29:13 says it all, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for me with all your heart.” Whoa!! Now I ask myself, am I seeking Him with ALL my heart? Jesus says in Matthew 7:7-8, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” But we have to seek Him with all our heart and soul! (Deuteronomy 4:29) I can say I am seeking God, but am I truly seeking Him? And if I am seeking God through His word, then I can’t forget the verse in Matthew 6:33 that tells me to seek first the kingdom of God which means seek first His church, Jesus’ church, the one He died for. Seeking God cannot be taken lightly friends. I am soooo a work in progress in all of this! On a side note, let’s think about this question. When are we closest to God? I believe that we can all agree that we are closest to God when we are going through trials. It is natural for us as humans to cling to God in our deepest despair and darkest times. Look at Jeremiah. He was clinging to God for dear life during this time in his life. Look at David in Psalm 51. He was on his knees praying for forgiveness, begging God to forgive him and to spare the life of his child that he had with Bathsheba. I have done the same thing in my own life. When I have lost loved ones or when I have gone through times of depression when dealing with something difficult, I have looked to God’s word to comfort me. I think of the times I have gotten myself caught up in the world and in sin and had to ask for forgiveness privately and publicly. I was holding on to my Father in heaven for dear life during those times. But what about in the good times? Do we give God as much attention during our happy times when everything is smooth sailing in our lives? I really am working on this because I feel like I have fallen short in this terribly. Let’s ask ourselves why we are having happy times? Why are things going so smoothly in our lives? It’s because of God. God is allowing us to have these good times and we need to make sure we cling to Him in those moments as well. We need to have a heart filled with gratitude every day that we live, in good times and in bad. We cling to Him for comfort in hard times, but we should also cling to Him during the good times because we know they come from Him. Ecclesiastes 7:14 (NKJV) says, “In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him.” I really like the way the New Living Translation says it, “Enjoy prosperity while you can, but when hard times strike, realize that both come from God. Remember that nothing is certain in this life.” This is basically saying that we should never take anything that God has done for us for granted. We need to cling to God in one way or another every day that we live. And remember that we do not know our future here on this earth. We can’t know it. This is why we cling to Him in both prosperity and adversity. This is what He wants from us.

 However, we CAN KNOW our eternal future if we have obeyed Him and if we are being faithful in our daily Christian walk. Our eternal future is really all that matters. Our eternal soul is precious to God and He wants us with Him. Christian friends, let’s cling to Him every day that we live. Just think about all He has done for us. And just think about how well He knows each one of us. Our very hairs are numbered! (Matthew 10:30) That just boggles my mind, friends! He knew us before we were conceived, when we were “yet unformed”! (Psalm 139:16) Go read all of Psalm 139 and you will see how intimately God knows us. So if He knows us so intimately and personally, isn’t it only natural that He would want a close relationship with each one of us? That He would want us to cling to Him in times of trouble and cling to Him in gratitude for all the good things in our lives? This is just something I thought of while studying these verses, food for thought!!

Let’s move on to verse 26 which talks about waiting quietly. Jeremiah says that it is good that we should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. The hope that Jeremiah has in God and His promises is the reason why Jeremiah is able to wait on the Lord. The verse says to wait quietly. This means that I should wait without complaining. This is a gut punch because I am not good at waiting without complaining. I am working on this as well. What good does it do for me to appear to be waiting on the Lord if I am complaining about every little thing that doesn’t go my way while I am waiting? I certainly don’t want to be like the Israelites and be a complainer and a whiner, but let’s face it, sometimes I am! So how can I fix this problem of complaining? How can I learn to wait quietly on the Lord? Wow, I love the perfection of God’s word and how everything fits together so beautifully and perfectly. I know what to do to fix it. I have written about it. I need to be in God’s word. I need to pray to God for strength in times when I feel like complaining. I need to become the “living sacrifice” that Romans 12:1-2 calls me to be and “transform” myself by the “renewing of my mind” so that I can “prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Complaining goes against everything we read in the Bible. We are told to be content and how can we be content if we are complaining and having a negative attitude? Complaining is conforming to this world which we are told not to do in Romans 12:2. Now don’t get me wrong. When I say complain, I am not talking about expressing our feelings in a constructive and helpful way. We can talk about our feelings as long we do it and still remain Christ-like. Look how Christ expressed His feelings of anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane before He was taken to be crucified. He knew what was going to happen to Him. He prayed to God, His father, for Him to let this cup pass from Him if it was possible, but then we know what He said next, “nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will”. (Matthew 26:39) Jesus wasn’t complaining! He was venting His feelings to His father! There is a difference between complaining and simply venting about something that may be stressful, scary, or just plain annoying. We have to vent sometimes to let our feelings out. Our mental state has to have this type of venting to remain healthy. However, there is a fine line and we have to guard against complaining in an unproductive way. Unproductive complaining includes placing blame for things that happen on someone else whether it be on other people or on God. It is when we don’t take responsibility for our own actions. It is when we are never content with anything we have or anything that is done for us. Everything is always someone else’s fault. Does this sound like the children of Israel? And yes, I have to ask myself, do I do this sometimes? Does my venting go too far and turn into complaining, placing blame, or being ungrateful for what I have? 

On the flip-side, sometimes our complaints are warranted and productive. This is minor but here is an example. I go to a restaurant and I ask for my steak to be well-done and it comes out rare. I politely give a complaint to the waitress and she takes it back and corrects the order. This is a warranted and productive complaint. My feelings are acknowledged and the problem is resolved. In everyday life sometimes there are honest mistakes that need to be corrected. And then sometimes we need to voice our feelings when we are truly being treated unfairly, but we must do this in the right way, with the right attitude, in a Christian way, with honesty, integrity and class. We have the right to defend our Lord and Savior, ourselves, our loved ones, and our beliefs. However, we don’t have the right to complain about everything we don’t get our way about and act in a way that is not Christ-like. If we are Christians, we should definitely not be complainers. Complaining is worldly. Paul tells the Christians at Philippi in Philippians 2:14-15, “Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world….” If we want to “shine as lights” in this dark world, we have to do things without complaining. 

So what was Jeremiah waiting quietly for? Christian friends, what are we waiting quietly for? I know that when I pray for things, I have to wait on God’s timetable for the answers. I have to wait without complaining and wait in contentment. But what am I ultimately waiting for? I am waiting on the same thing Jeremiah was waiting for, Jesus Christ. Jeremiah knew someone was coming to bring salvation to the world. Anytime salvation is discussed in the old testament, this is a messianic prophecy. Jeremiah was waiting for God to bring salvation into the world through Jesus Christ. He knew that God would preserve His people. He knew that God would keep that promise no matter what terrible things were happening at that time. Is that not what we all are waiting for? The only difference between us and Jeremiah is that we are waiting for Jesus Christ to come back a second time and take us home to heaven with God our Father. If we are in Christ and are living faithful, then we have nothing to fear! 

To sum up this series of lessons, we should always remember that God is our spiritual portion through Jesus Christ. We have a portion of a spiritual inheritance with Christ. Let’s never forget that our hope is a living hope through Jesus Christ. Let’s always remember that God’s mercy, compassion, and faithfulness are infinite and they are new every morning. And finally, let’s use Jeremiah’s example and remember to wait quietly on the salvation of the Lord. Christian friends, Isaiah 40:31 is such a beautiful verse of hope as we wait on the Lord, “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” This paints such a beautiful picture of us, God’s children, as we wait on God’s timetable. 

I’m asking myself these questions as I end, do I feel the way the apostle Paul felt? That to live is Christ and to die is gain? (Philippians 1:21) Do I truly know that nothing on this earth can ever compare to heaven? And while I am here, is my purpose to do my best to help others know how to get to heaven?

Friends, I hope this helps in your Christian walk this week. Everything that I write is always written straight to myself first because I am such a work in progress and have so much I need to work in my Christian walk. I am so thankful for those of you who take the time to read my articles. It is so encouraging to me. Hope everyone has a wonderful Lord’s Day and a blessed week ahead!

Friends, here is God’s plan of salvation for anyone who needs to hear it:

• We have to hear His word. (Romans 10:17) 
• Upon hearing the message of Jesus, we believe it. (Mark 16:16) 
• Then, we confess Jesus’ name before men. (Matthew 10:32) 
• Next, we repent of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19) 
• Finally, we are baptized into Christ for the remission of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:16, Romans 6:3-4, Acts 22:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:26-27) 
• Then, we remain faithful in our commitment to Christ until death. (Revelation 2:10, 2 Peter 2:20-22)

Copyright 2023, all rights reserved.

Part 2- God’s mercies, compassion, and faithfulness

Lamentations 3:21-26

21  This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.

22  Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.

23  They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

24  “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”

25  The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.

26  It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.

In my last post, we looked at the hope Jeremiah found in God in such a dark time in His life. In verse 21, we see him finally seeing some hope, some light, in the darkness of this time in biblical history. So……..why do you think that Jeremiah was able to find hope? What did he know about God that gave him hope? How does God give us hope? 

Verse 22 tells us why Jeremiah could find hope. “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.” This is why Jeremiah had hope. He had seen God show mercy and forgive His people over and over. God took them back every time they repented. Look at all the times the people turned away from God to worship idols and our great God just kept forgiving them. Now let me be clear, this wasn’t without consequences. The people still had to face the consequences of their sin. Sin brought consequences on the people. Sin brings consequences on us today. But……God will forgive us of our sin. Jeremiah knew about the covenant God had with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Jeremiah 33:26) He knew about God’s covenant with Israel when they were in Egyptian bondage. (Jeremiah 34:13) He knew the history of God’s people and how often God had shown mercy on them. God was dedicated to preserving His people so that Jesus Christ could be born from this lineage. God has been dedicated to preserving US through His Son!! Jeremiah 33:14-16 are prophetic verses promising the coming Messiah, “Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah: In those days and at that time I will cause to grow up to David, a branch of righteousness; He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell safely. And this is the name by which she will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.’” God had said that Jerusalem would dwell safely. So even though things were terrible at the time of Jeremiah’s distress, he knew that God would keep that promise. He also knew from those same verses that someone was coming to “execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.” He didn’t know who was coming, but he knew God was sending someone to set things in order on earth. In Isaiah 55:7 we read, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” This verse plainly says that God will have mercy on the wicked and pardon them if they will turn to Him and obey Him. All they had to do in Jeremiah’s day was turn to Him with a sincere heart. As Christians, that is all we have to do today. We have to turn to Him AND obey him. In times of distress for us, we can know that God is still in control and will keep his promises to us. Like the verse above says, His mercies will not allow us to be consumed. As Christians, no matter what happens in our lives on this earth and no matter how many times we fall short, as long as we turn to God with a sincere heart and ask for forgiveness, everything will work out according to His will someday. When we ask Him for forgiveness, we are admitting that we are sinners and that we need our savior, Jesus Christ.

Isn’t it wonderful that we can go to God anytime? What a blessing!! Hebrews 4:16 assures us that we can go to God anytime we need him. ANYTIME! Listen to these words, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” We get to not only come, but come boldly, with confidence that we will be heard and listened intently to!! God wants to listen to us. We are not insignificant to God! Our concerns, problems, needs, heartaches, etc. are never insignificant to God! He cares about all of it! Just like He cared for Jeremiah when He was in such grief, He cares for us in ours. We can be in a horrible place in our own personal lives like David was at one time. David had hit rock bottom when he wrote Psalm 51. He had committed adultery and murder. David was away from God, but He came back on his knees begging God to forgive him. Psalms 51 has been a go-to chapter for me to pray through at times when I have not been right with God. This chapter helps us know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we can go to God with anything. In Psalms 51:1-2 David writes, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” Skip down to Psalm 51:10-11 and it reads, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.” God knew David’s weaknesses and He knows ours today. If God forgave David, then He will forgive us when we fall short. Jeremiah and David were both lamenting. They were both in anguish. Their reasons were very different. Jeremiah was in anguish over failing to get the people to repent. David was in anguish over his own sin. The point is, it doesn’t matter what we come to God with, He will be there for us. We can lay it at His feet. AND……… if we look to His word, we will find the solution to whatever our problem is or we will find comfort in whatever is grieving us. 

The only reason, and I mean the ONLY reason, our world is still standing today is because of the mercy and compassion of God. Because of His mercy in preserving His people and sending His son, we are here today, we are called Christians today and we are His church today. We have today to live right before God, ONLY because of God’s mercy. If we haven’t obeyed the gospel yet or if we are not living up to our commitment to Christ by living faithful, we have today, ONLY because of God’s mercy. We are not promised tomorrow. I have learned from my daddy to pray for time in my personal prayers. He has always prayed for time for more people to be saved, for more people to see the truth. I have started doing this as well. I pray for time for as many people as possible to see what they need to do to gain eternity with God and His Son. The thought of anyone, especially those I love so much, being lost just hurts me to my core.

Are compassion and mercy the same thing? The verse also says that “His compassions fail not”. Mercy and compassion are different. When God shows mercy on us, it means He forgives us when we fall short. He tells us to forgive others if we want Him to forgive us. God has compassion on us when we are struggling in our lives with sickness, problems at work, problems with our children or in our marriage. He is concerned about us. This is compassion. We can know His compassion when we open His word and read about it and we can feel that compassion towards us. We know what it feels like to show compassion to others. God feels that same compassion for us. Think about all the times that God showed compassion on the children of Israel when they were wandering in the wilderness and they were some pretty ungrateful people. He sent manna and quail from heaven for them to eat. (Exodus 16) He brought water from a rock twice when they were thirsty. (Exodus 17:1-7, Numbers 20:2-13) This is only a couple of examples of the compassion He showed His people. 

Jesus was God in the flesh and we saw Him showing unlimited compassion for people when He was on earth. The Bible says that Jesus had compassion on them and healed their sick. (Matthew 14:14) Jesus also was moved with compassion on people at one time because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. (Matthew 9:36) Jesus is our ultimate shepherd. And let’s not forget when Jesus had compassion on the multitude because they had been with Him for three days and had no food. This is when Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fish. (Matthew 15:32) God and his Son have unlimited compassion and mercy on us when we obey them, when we lean on them, and when we make them the center of our lives. 

On this earth, God’s compassion falls on the just and the unjust according to Matthew 5:45. He takes care of all of us regardless of what we believe or how we act which says a lot about God’s character. He loves every soul He ever created, born and unborn, and wants all to be saved.  However, on judgment day, His mercy/forgiveness will only be on ones who are in Christ and have remained faithful until death. (Romans 6:3-4, Revelation 2:10) We have to be in Christ for Him to be our mediator for us with God the Father at the judgment day. (1 Timothy 2:5) Paul does a beautiful job of explaining baptism in Romans chapter 6. To be in Christ, we have to have been baptized into Him through water baptism for the remission of our sins. (Acts 2:38) Acts chapter 2 is where the gospel was preached for the first time and the church was established for the first time. People were only added by God to the church after they gladly received the words that the apostles preached. (Acts 2:47) What were those words? Look back at Acts 2:38 to see how Peter answered the people whose hearts were pricked after they heard about what happened to Jesus. They asked in verse 37 “what shall we do?”. They were pricked in their hearts. But more had to be done. If those people at that time were commanded to be baptized to have sins forgiven, then why wouldn’t this commandment be the same for us today? This is not me saying this to offend anyone who believes differently about baptism. I’m simply saying what the Bible says verbatim, because I love all people’s souls too much to say anything else. According to God’s word, we have to come into contact with the blood of Christ to have remission of sins. Acts 22:16 says that plainly as Ananias tells Paul what to do to wash away his ugly past. With an open heart I ask you to listen to the scriptures, not me. I talk about baptism more in depth in another article I wrote a couple of weeks ago. I ask you to be like the Bereans in Acts 17:11. Paul bragged about them because they searched the scriptures of old to see if the things Paul and Silas were preaching to them about Christ were true or not. Never take my word for it in these articles I write. Please go look in the Bible at the verses I provide and make sure I’m right in what I’m saying. I would never want to say anything other than the truth and I am only human. Let’s all be careful to listen to God’s word and make sure that what someone is telling us lines up with God’s word. Why take chances? Why not just do what the Bible tells us to do? This is just food for thought. 

And now comes the most beautiful thought that Jeremiah had as he looked up into heaven and realized that God was still there…….in control. He says that God’s mercy and compassion are “new every morning”. What a beautiful thought!! Every morning when we open our eyes, God’s mercy has given us another day of life, another chance to serve Him, another chance to help someone else on their journey. Every morning God’s compassion allows us to have everything we need to survive the day. We all have struggles in our lives, but we are taken care of by God. Our physical needs are met for the most part. We have to work to make money to buy what we need. But who gave us the health, ability, and talents to work and do the specific jobs we do? And then the work that we do, in turn, helps other people in their lives to have the things they need to survive. I’m a teacher and I hope that I have used my talent to help children in their school journey so that they can grow into confident, productive, hard-working adults who contribute to society. But God is the reason that I have the ability to teach. He gave me the calling to do the job I do. We are all able to survive because God gave us all unique abilities to help each other make it through this life. It is amazing when you think about it. God’s mercy and compassion are new every morning. I love it. 

So Jeremiah then exalts God by saying, “Great is Your faithfulness”. Jeremiah is simply recognizing God for being so faithful to His people throughout all their ups and downs. What does it mean to be faithful? Let’s use marriage as an example. In a marriage, we vow to be faithful to our spouse for the rest of our lives. Husband and wife are loyal to each other and trust each other completely. You are one with each other when you are joined together in holy matrimony. Song of Solomon 2:16 says this beautifully, “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” You belong to each other.  Each person puts the other person’s needs ahead of his/her own needs and is dedicated to their spouse for a lifetime. The wife is to submit to the husband and the husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. (Ephesians 5: 22-25) I can guarantee that no woman would ever have trouble submitting to her husband if the husband loved her like Christ loved the church. Let that sink in. Christ gave up His life for the church. This is how a man should take care of His wife. He should be willing to give up His life for her. Life I said before, submission would never be a problem if all husbands would put their wives ahead of themselves. And we wives should show respect and love to our husbands and put them ahead of ourselves. Our number one goal in our marriages should be to help each other get to heaven and to serve God together. We might not need divorce lawyers anymore if we would follow these simple verses in God’s word and keep our marriages Christ-centered. So how is God faithful to us today? Well for one thing, He gave us Jesus. He made a promise that Jesus would be born of a virgin, grow into a man, go about preaching and performing miracles, be rejected by mankind, be beaten and humiliated, and finally crucified and killed on a tree. And all of this happened just like God foretold through the prophets in the old testament. Isaiah 53 tells all about Jesus Christ and what he would go through for us. But that is not all!! God also promised that Jesus would not stay in the grave, but that He would rise from the dead to conquer death and Satan. And He did!! David prophesied about it in Psalm 16:8-11. And Jesus himself told of His own death and resurrection in Mark 9:31. I encourage you to go read those verses. God has kept every promise that He ever made to us, except one. He has promised that His Son would come back to earth someday and take home the faithful that are in Christ Jesus.  1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 explains it so beautifully, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” This is the promise that we who are in Christ are waiting for, and we fully believe in the faithfulness of our great God just like Jeremiah did when he spoke of it in Lamentations many years before. The faithfulness of God is everlasting. I’ll end with Psalm 36:5, “Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.” 

Always remember the mercy, compassion, and faithfulness of God. We are so lucky to have an almighty Creator who cares so deeply for us and desires to have us with Him for eternity. All we have to do is follow His plan found in His word. His plan is simple. It starts with hearing. We have to hear His word. (Romans 10:17) Upon hearing the message of Jesus, we believe it. (Mark 16:16) Then, we confess Jesus’ name before men. (Matthew 10:32) Next, we repent of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19) Finally, we are baptized into Christ for the remission of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:16, Romans 6:3-4, Acts 22:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:26-27) After baptism, God adds us to His church. (Acts 2:47) Lastly, we remain faithful in our commitment to Christ and His church until death. (Revelation 2:10, 2 Peter 2:20-22)

I am really enjoying the blessings I am finding in God’s word through this blog! The treasures in God’s word are new every morning for me. I hope this helps everyone who reads it want to search the scriptures daily. I hope everyone has a blessed Mother’s Day tomorrow and a wonderful week ahead!! I will post part 3 on these verses next week. 

Copyright 2023, all rights reserved.

Part 1- Hope

Lamentations 3:21-26

21  This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.

22  Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.

23  They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

24  “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”

25  The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.

26  It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.

Lamentations is a book of grief and anguish. It is about the anguish of a man who had done all He could to warn God’s people against coming judgment, but to no avail. They had not listened to him. By not listening to him, they in turn were not listening to God. Jeremiah was called by God to warn the people. He was given a job to do and I’m sure he felt like he had failed. These verses in the middle of the book of Lamentations are so beautiful and comforting, especially considering what the author, Jeremiah, was going through during this time in history. Most of the book of Lamentations is very sad and you can tell that Jeremiah is as depressed as he can be throughout it. He had tried so hard to warn God’s people of His coming judgment if they didn’t repent and turn back to Him…….and they didn’t. This led to God bringing judgment on the city of Jerusalem by allowing its destruction. Many were killed and the ones who lived were carried away into Babylonian captivity. Jeremiah laments throughout the whole book. The word lamentation means the passionate expression of grief or sorrow. It is expressing grief, not holding it inside in the least. However, we see some light in the darkness in these verses. We see a glimpse of the future for God’s people in these verses and we know that God did preserve His people through all the turmoil they brought on themselves. Through all the ups and downs of God’s chosen people, the Israelites, God kept His promises to them and showed mercy on them when they repented. God had a plan for His Son to be born from this line of people at the time of His perfect will. He did this so that all people everywhere could have the opportunity to be saved. This time in biblical history is dark, but Jeremiah had not lost his faith that God would make a way for His people. Let’s look at Jeremiah’s words in the above verses and see how we can relate these to our lives today. 

Imagine a dark room with no light at all, so dark that we can’t see our hand in front of our face. Then we light a candle with this tiny flame. It’s tiny, but it allows us to see. This is what our life may feel like sometimes when we go through hard times. Everyone’s hard times are different. Each one of us knows what this feels like in one way or another. At the time, it seems like nothing will ever get better. Time goes by so slowly in those moments. Then…….we decide to get on our knees in prayer, and open God’s word and suddenly we have some hope……some light, like a candle in a dark room. Once Jeremiah had gotten through some grief and possibly even some anger over all that had taken place, we see him finding that little bit of hope, that light in all that darkness. These verses give me so much hope. Hope in his Creator kept him from giving up. That same hope keeps us from giving up. Remember my last post, AT HIS FEET? Because of our hope in Christ, we can lay everything at His feet.

In verse 21, after Jeremiah had been in darkness and had wept and lamented for a time, he allowed God to shed some light on the situation and give him some hope. It is like he couldn’t see any hope for a time. He was going through a grieving process so to speak. Jeremiah was human just like us. We do the same thing. Sometimes something is so traumatic/upsetting/annoying, whatever the emotion is, that it brings on a reaction so suddenly that we can’t even get our thoughts together to turn to God in that moment. But when we finally get to where we can process, we turn to God and He begins the healing process. Now I have no idea what Jeremiah’s physical appearance was, but I can picture him raising his eyes to heaven in the midst of all this grief and thinking, but………..”This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.” He finds hope in God. This is what we as Christians have to always remember. In all our turmoil, whatever it is, God is with us with the candle burning, with our hope for the future when we are ready to see it. Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us what God’s thoughts were toward his people and what they are toward us today, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Does this sound like God wants bad things to happen to us? Of course he doesn’t. Sometimes others’ bad choices can cause trials for us. But that does not mean that we lose hope in God and His promises. His plan for us never changes. We may do things that change the course of our own lives, but His ultimate plan for us will never change.

The Psalms have many wonderful verses about hope. Psalm 33:22 says, “Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, just as we hope in you.” This verse ties God’s mercy to our hope. Because of God’s mercy, we have hope, just like Jeremiah did in the verses above. Psalm 71:14 ties hope with our praise to God. Because of the hope we have, we praise and exalt God, “But I will hope continually, and will praise You yet more and more.” In Romans 12:12 the apostle Paul instructs Christians to rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer. Do you think God wanted to let Israel be taken into captivity by Babylon? Of course not. But God had to get their attention! In order for His plan to save mankind to unfold at the proper time, He had to allow these things to happen. He didn’t want to!! Remember Deuteronomy 5:29? This is one of my favorite verses that shows the personality of God toward His creation, “Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!” This is it! This is why He allowed them to be taken into captivity. It was a wake up call!! Don’t we realize that all of His people were not doing evil. Think about the children (young men) that were carried away that stayed faithful to God while in captivity, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo. They did not deserve this, but God used them while in captivity as examples for us today in keeping the faith and standing up for the truth of the gospel. Remember the lions’ den and the fiery furnace? These are stories from our childhood Sunday school classes, but they are just as important for us to remember as adults. God also worked through Daniel and gave prophecy about the coming kingdom (the church) in Daniel 2:44, “And in the days of these kings (kings of the Roman Empire) shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.” God’s kingdom is here today. In the midst of all the religious confusion in the world, the Lord’s church is still standing. I love that I can go into any assembly of the Lord’s church and there is no division. The truth is being taught and glory is being given to God. We are all of one accord everywhere the world over. (Philippians 2:2) This is why God kept on punishing and forgiving His people over and over in the old testament. He had to bring about the establishment of His kingdom here on earth, the church, through His Son at the perfect time. This was his plan from the beginning.

God’s timing is perfect. It was perfect during the time of Jeremiah and it is today. Jeremiah had hope in God’s promises in the darkest of times and we can too. In the old covenant, God exercised His judgment immediately and there was no mediator between man and God. In the new covenant, God will exercise judgment at Christ’s second coming. There will be a separation between the sheep and goats. (Matthew 25:31-33) The sheep will be His followers who worship Him in both spirit and truth. God is looking for His people who do this. John 4:23-24 says, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.” And we now have Christ as our mediator between us and God if we are in Him. (1 Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 9:15)  His sacrifice on the cross made this possible. This is why we and our future generations and generations past have hope. Without Him as our intercessor, we would have no hope. This is to my fellow Christians, never forget that our hope is new every morning in Jesus, no matter what we have to face each day. As I have said in my earlier posts, be in God’s word daily and pray daily and our Father will keep our hope alive if we abide in Him.

Hope this helps us in our Christian walk friends. I write because it helps me study. It is how I study best. Blessings to everyone in the coming week!!

Copyright 2023, all rights reserved.

At His Feet

Do you ever feel overwhelmed to the point where you don’t know where to start? Do you ever feel down on yourself because you feel like you have let things in your life pile up and you feel like you are drowning? Or maybe you just feel like you are not doing enough spiritually, but you don’t know what to do to change it? You feel spread so thin that one more thing might break you. You are in a rut and you want to get out of it so bad!! This has been me more times than I can count. I have been a roller coaster in my life. Some days I feel like I can accomplish anything and other days I do good to get my shoes tied. I just roll through my day doing everything I have to do and at the end of the day I am thinking………what did I do today to take care of myself? Did I connect with my heavenly father today? What did I do today to feed myself spiritually? And the answer was nothing. I didn’t do anything for myself spiritually today. And after several days of this, I begin to feel insignificant no matter what I’ve done. It’s because I begin to feel disconnected from God. And this feeling carries over into every other facet of my life. I don’t feel like I am the wife or mother or any of the other hats I wear daily, that I should be. Most of all I don’t feel like I’m the Christian that I should be. We all have days where we just don’t feel motivated. We feel so far behind that we think we will never get caught up. Physically and mentally, we may be drained. It may be stress at work, stress at home, or it could be our hormone changes ladies. From taking care of young children, to chauffeuring older children for all their activities,  to taking care of elderly parents and other family members, to keeping our home somewhat in order, to juggling our careers if we have a secular job, we women are multitaskers. God made us this way because He knows we can handle doing more than five things at one time!! However, when things get too overwhelming, we can feel powerless and out of control. We may simply have too much on us at times. We may need to take something off of our plate if that is possible. But……sometimes that is just not a possibility. We often probably wish we could clone ourselves. We may have people depending on us for a number of reasons and we feel paralyzed and wonder………where do I even begin?  

Well friends, we begin by dropping to our knees in prayer and laying everything that is overwhelming us, everything that is worrying us, everything that has hurt us, everything that is causing us to feel out of control at God’s feet. That has become my mantra recently………at His feet. Saying this to myself over and over some days is what gets me through tough days. I simply pray in my mind to my heavenly Father and say to Him, “Father, I am leaving this at Your feet. I trust you to work your will with this situation. I know that everything happens in your time, not mine, and I’ll try my best to wait and be patient for your perfect will. Whatever your will is for this, I accept it.” Then I take a deep breath and I feel better for a while. It’s not a one-time thing though. Like I said, sometimes it is a constant recording on repeat in my brain when I am really struggling. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Before we turn to anything or anyone else to help us cope with anything in our lives, let’s immediately remember these verses from Jesus and connect with our Father in prayer. God will strengthen us and will never put more on us than we can handle. He knows our strength. In Isaiah 41:10, God says, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” But if we never open God’s word for guidance or never go to Him sincerely in prayer, then He can’t help us. We tie God’s hands when we turn to worldly ways to cope. 

So what about coping mechanisms? There are many unhealthy ways to cope. Some obvious ones are alcohol and drugs. I think we all realize the dangers of alcohol and drugs as coping mechanisms. Destruction of marriages and families, health problems, addictions, and untimely deaths have stemmed from using alcohol and drugs to cope with problems. From my experience, the majority of the time when people abuse these substances, it is because they are trying to forget something unpleasant/traumatic, relieve stress and anxiety, or both. They are trying to numb the pain through self-medication. As Christians, using any of these substances instead of going to our Creator is definitely not going to help us. It will harm us physically and harm our relationship with God. Not to mention, it is not glorifying to God, and makes us look like we belong to the world, which at that point we do belong to the world. However, there are other unhealthy coping mechanisms that are more subtle. Overeating and bingeing-eating have always been one of my unhealthy coping mechanisms. It’s harmful to me and in no way glorifies God when I do it. It’s a struggle that I’m continually fighting daily and with God’s help I will win the battle!! 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 reminds me, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” God has given me this body and I should be a good steward of it. Turning tothings other than God, especially behaviors that are unhealthy, can turn into really bad habits or even addictions. And let me just say, even seemingly healthy things for us can interfere with our relationship with God if we turn to them instead of God. Exercise can be one of those things. I speak from experience with this. Of course I firmly believe in exercise for our physical and mental health. It is so good for us if it is not turned into an idol. Exercise used to be something I really overdid, and put as my top priority every day. Nothing else mattered more to me than getting that workout done. It was my main focus at one time in my life when I was much younger. I used to beat myself up terribly if I ever missed a day. Exercise in itself is a wonderful thing and I try to make it a priority for my physical health, but my daily Bible study and prayer have to be my top priority every day for my spiritual health. My physical or mental health won’t get better until I am healthy spiritually. I realize that now. I wish I had figured this out a long time ago when I was much younger. Hint, hint to my younger readers. However, it is never to late to turn things around and get things in order no matter what age you are. I am 52 and I am trying to turn certain aspects of my life around. We can do it with God’s help!! I also tend to turn to television shows or movies to take my mind off of troubles and trials. Personally I really have to fight this. Some turn to social media. In themselves, these are not wrong, but if we do these activities in place of or ahead of Bible study and prayer, then they can become wrong. We must have balance. These activities are entertaining and enjoyable but they do not help our problems go away or help us deal with them, any more than drinking alcohol or taking drugs or overeating/bingeing, or exercising until we drop, or anything else. These are all just bandaids, not cures. Our Savior, the Great Physician is the only “cure”. Now, don’t misunderstand me. Let me repeat, I’m not saying that watching movies, TV shows, or looking at social media is wrong in itself. I love movies and shows as long as they do not influence me in a negative way and affect my Christian walk. However, anything that we turn to in order to cope with our trials in this life other than God is only a quick fix. Our trials will still be there and we will feel even worse because we haven’t turned to our Creator and our Father to help us. We will have a void in our lives that we will never fill with earthly activities or things. God has to fill our void or we will always be searching for a way to fill it. Whether it is healthy or not, it is still a quick fix and will not fill our void. There will always be times when we will feel physically and mentally drained. But if we are spiritually alive with God through prayer and through His word, then that feeling of being drained is so much easier to handle. God wants us to put everything weighing us down on Him. He wants us to trust Him with our lives. Just listen to Ephesians 2:4-5……..”But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)……” He is telling the Christians at Ephesus, who had already fully obeyed the gospel in baptism, that He loved them when they were sinners…..dead in their sin and He made them alive when they made the choice to be baptized and have their sins washed away. God still feels this way about us and has that same  great love for us today. If he loves us so very much, why would we want to turn anywhere else for help or comfort if we are Christians? He’s got us!!  

Everyone has their own trials. Trials are meant to draw us closer to Him if we let them. James 1:2-4 says “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” It’s really hard to find joy in trials, isn’t it? God knows we are human and He knows that trials do not make us happy, however we can still find joy because we know that God has got us in the palm of His hand if we are turning to Him. Let’s not forget that being happy and having joy are two separate things though. There is no place in God’s word where God tells us we will be happy all the time. But He does promise us joy, but only if we are abiding in Him. If we abide in Him always, we will find joy no matter what is going on in our lives. How do we abide in Him and find joy? Jesus tells us plainly how we abide in Him in John 15:10-11, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” 

We will find joy in trials if we truly lay everything at Jesus’ feet. Let’s do that friends. Life will still be hard at times, but laying our trials at our Savior’s feet and then going to His word for guidance will help us navigate through them in a healthy way and will help us grow as Christians.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday and blessed week to come!! Thank you for reading!!

Copyright 2023, all rights reserved.