Faith

All posts tagged Faith

The Father Loves The Son

Posted by The Bible In Your Hand on June 22, 2018
Posted in: Uncategorized, Religion, Spirituality, Christianity, Christian. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

love-of-god-hands-fatherThe Father Loves The Son

Therefore the Father Loves Us

31 He who comes from above is above all; He who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. 32 And what he has seen and heard, that He testifies and no one receives His testimony. 33 He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true. 34 For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure. 35 The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. 36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

He that Comes from above. Oh, what joy this must have given John the baptizer to speak these words. “He that comes from above” was a Jewish idiom meaning, “The Messiah has, or is come.” For Christ came from above in order that men might be “born from above.” Therefore, since Christ is born from above, it is only right and proper, it is necessary in fact for Him to be above all whose origin is earthly.   Since Adam, all mankind has been found to have his or her origin here on earth.

He that comes from heaven testifies of what He hath seen and heard.” If this expression is retained, John admits that Christ is infinitely greater than himself, greater, in fact, than all mankind. Therefore, John the Baptizer refuses to consider himself a rival of Jesus. This is why only Jesus can testify to the character of the Father. Because He is from heaven and being from heaven He has seen the Father and has come down from heaven to show us who the Father is and what His character is by how Christ lived his life while here on earth.

Yet, how few receive Him. How few who meet Jesus really accepted Him as the Sent of God. Oh, sure some men and women received him and believed His testimony, but they were few, their faith was weak, and their thoughts were often clouded by the traditions of man.

But to those that listen to the testimony of John the Baptizer and accept Jesus as one who was sent of God, will learn and understand that the Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. Therefore, those that hear His words and see the results of His working of miracles and truly believe on Him, will be sealed as a personal seal is affixed to a document making it the property of the person who affixes the seal. So, then those who truly believe on Jesus will be affixed with His seal, set aside for a Holy work and by nature of their acceptance of God’s gift of atonement, they will receive everlasting life.

For Christ did not come in His own name speaking and saying His own words, but he came in the name of the Father, speaking the words and doing the actions of the Father, who gave His Son, that all who believe in Jesus should have everlasting life.

Then they, like Christ, who was filled with the Holy Spirit can also be filled with the Holy Spirit and know that the Father loves them as He loved Christ.

Why would we want to be filled with the Holy Spirit? To resist temptation and sin, and that we to can speak the words and perform the actions that God would want us to do, to further His work and show the character of God to others. As Christ was filled with the Holy Spirit, He could then complete the work that He was sent to do. We to must be filled with the Holy Spirit to complete the work we are sent to do. For you see, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:1-5).

So it was, despite the testimony of John the Baptizer, and the words of the prophets that went before in what we call today the Old Testament, they all bore testimony to the fact that Christ, was the Son of God, come to be the Light of the world. Yet, despite all the evidence, He was rejected by most, scored by many, yet loved by the Father and accepted by a few. Therefore, He that keeps on believing, grabbing ahold of the Saviour with all his might, is assured of the saving grace. To be once in grace is not sufficient; a man or a woman must remain in grace all their days to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Yet we are not perfect, yet God through Jesus understands our weaknesses and therefore Christ righteousness makes up the difference. This does not mean we can do as we please, but that when we establish and maintain a relationship with God through Christ, that when we fall, when we fail to live up to the letter of the law, Christ stands in our place and says, I have paid the ransom for their soul. I died that they might have everlasting life, therefore that sin is blotted out because daily they seek a relationship with me, and they love me and desire to keep my commandments. “Therefore I will forgive them,” says God, and they are counted as righteous before the angels and the unfallen worlds.

You see, Christ explained to Nicodemus the plan of salvation. John the baptizer testified that Christ is the promised Messiah and all those that believe and come to Christ as new a born baby, with the teachable spirit of a baby, will indeed learn of God the Father through Christ, who came to show us God’s true character and love for all mankind.

What are you waiting for? Surrender your heart to Christ, ask him to send the Holy Spirit into your heart to teach you in all things concerning the Father who loves you as a son or a daughter and sent His Son to show us the way.

 

He Who Has The Bride

Posted by The Bible In Your Hand on June 21, 2018
Posted in: Christian, Christianity, Religion, Spirituality, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

rs-wonder-bridegroomHe Who Has The Bride

28 “You yourselves bear me witness that I said, “I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him. 29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease. 31 He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.”

It is important for there to be witnesses, but without witnesses it become a game of he said, she said. Meaning there is no way of verifying what a person said without there being witnesses.

Today with all our forms of electronic communication, what we write is out there for people to see and the written words on Facebook, Twitter and other such social media bear witness to what we have said. During Christ’s time on earth if one spoke, and no one was there to hear, or bear witness to what you say, then it became a matter of having to accept by faith what another said. John is stating to his disciples, “You all have heard what I said, I must decrease, so that Christ might increase. For He who comes from above is above all.”

Herein lies a principle of our Christian experience that we all seem to forget. John upon becoming an ambassador for Christ, recognized that he had a role to play in announcing the coming of Christ. He realized that for him to accomplish this, his own life must be lived in the same manner as his message was to be. He must remain as far as humanly possible free from sin. He must not let pride come into his life, for if he allowed pride to rule his life, then he would become jealous of Jesus and instead of pointing others to Christ, he would point them to the wonderful things, he himself had done.

But John realized that in Jesus, who came from above (heaven) that He alone would be able to speak of heavenly things. John, being of this earth is only qualified to speak of earthly things.

So, why did John speak about this friend of the bridegroom? The friend of the bridegroom was the middleman who made arrangements between the family of the groom and that of the bride. He would be pleased when the transaction reached a happy climax. John is saying that he was this middleman that had come to make the arrangements for Jesus to be united with His bride, which was the Jewish nation and all His faithful followers. John was to point others to the coming of the bridegroom and make ready the people to receive the groom.

The making way was accomplished by the people confessing their sins and being baptized with water, a symbol of the washing away of sin and being born as a new person.

If the Jewish nation had truly been repentant and as we saw in the story of Nicodemus became as spiritual babies, willing to be taught without their pride and selfish desires getting in the way, then Christ mission on earth would have been more successful.

John had fulfilled his appointed role of calling Israel to accept her spiritual Lord and Master. Therefore John rejoiced at the apparent success of the One on whose behalf he had labored. His own “joy” was thus “fulfilled (see Mark 2:19).

One other important aspect of this friend of the groom. John speaks of the friend as being intent on learning the wishes of the groom and carrying them out. So it should be with all Christians who truly are disciples of Christ. We too should desire to understand the wishes of the groom so that we can carry out these wishes as we complete the arrangements here on earth to unite the bride of Christ with the Bridegroom.

Upon completion, our response should be as John, we should be happy upon the successful completion of our task of causing Christ to increase in the lives of others, while we decrease in importance as their relationship with Christ increases.

The humble servant of Christ gladly pointed to Christ and not to himself showing that within his own heart, he had truly accepted Christ.

In our hearts, is Christ increasing while self is decreasing? If not, then I advise you to follow the council and witness of John, as he willingly decreased that Christ might increase to a place of importance far from what John could do, for Christ understood heavenly things, while John was confined to earthly things.

 

Why Are We Still Here

Posted by The Bible In Your Hand on June 20, 2018
Posted in: Christian, Christianity, Religion, Spirituality, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

IMG_3714 (002)Why Are We Here?

Hebrews 3:16-19; “For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, fed by Moses? Now with whom was Ge angry forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter into His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.”

It was not the will of God that Israel should wander forty years in the wilderness: He desired to lead them directly to the land of Canaan and establish them there, a holy, happy people…..Because of their backsliding and apostasy they perished in the desert…. it’s hard for me to understand many Christians that feel that the Old Testament is not pertinent to us today, we are given instruction for our lives today by the teachings of the Bible especially in the Old Testament. God would have His people in these days review with a humble heart and teachable spirit the trials through which ancient Israel passed, that they may be instructed in their preparation for the heavenly Canaan. It was their unbelief that kept them from going into the land that God had prepared for them.

I have been thinking about the word unbelief. What was it that they did not believe? They saw with their own eyes how God opened the Red Sea and they walked through on dry land with their own two feet. What did they not believe? How could they not trust God after all of that? It was not just a few people who didn’t get it. The entire generation died in the wilderness. They could not enter in because of their unbelief. We are not unlike these people. Many of us look back to the Israelites and marvel at their unbelief and murmuring, feeling that we would not have been so ungrateful; but when our faith is tested even by little trials, we manifest no more faith or patience than ancient Israel.

We complain about how long the sermon was, the music was too loud, the chairs were so hard, the pastor wants us to come to church twice a week? We have to attend another evangelistic series? Unbelief.

It is not the will of God that the coming of Christ should be so long delayed and His people should remain so many years in this world of sin and sorrow. But unbelief is separating us from God. We are not engaged. We are just going through the motions thinking that we are good Christians because we go to church once a week.

Isaiah 30:15,”in returning and rest you shall be saved: in quietness and confidence shall be your strength”. This rest us not found in inactivity: for in the Saviour’s invitation the promise of rest is united with the call to labor. “Take my yoke upon you… and ye shall find rest. The heart that rests most fully upon Christ will be most earnest and active in labor for Him. To believe in Christ merely as the Saviour to the world can never bring healing to the soul. The faith that is unto salvation is not a mere assent to the truth of the gospel. True faith is that which receives Christ as Saviour . Faith that leads to entire dependence upon God and unreserved consecration to His work.

Let’s follow the “Cloud” by day and the “pillar of fire” by night, obeying the still small voice that tells us to go to the left or the right. Rest in Jesus to take us home, to the place prepared for His people.