There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.” There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body. 1 Corinthians 6:16-20 MSG https://bible.com/bible/97/1co.6.16-20.MSG
Category: Believe in the One Who saves
Punishment and payment
We are a race born with a natural bent toward sin because of Adam. If you told a little child not to eat these cookies and you caught them doing so, most would tell you that they didn’t eat the cookies. Even if you caught them with crumbs on their clothes and their hand coming out of the jar! They’ve not been taught to lie but they will when they are caught doing something they know is wrong. It is this natural tendency that stays with you and me for our entire life and that is the reason Jesus Christ had to pay the penalty for all of our sins.
So why was it so important to God for Him to do this? Because He wanted our relationship to return to the way it was in the Garden.
He wants the relationship to be as it was because it won’t be tainted by the stench of sin and rebellion. That is the only kind of relationship that will be present in Heaven. We will be able to go to Him at any time and He will answer us even before we ask our question.
Oh, how I am looking forward to that day! When the sky opens up like a scroll and the Trumpet of God sounds and the dead are raised to immortality and those who are alive and have remained faithful to Jesus will follow them. The whole world will know that our God is True and faithful and there will be no denying it.
I pray that anyone who reads this will seek to know their Savior before that day comes.
Faith walks…
When Jesus looked for followers, before He called His disciples, He knew He needed men who would follow Him every day during His ministry. He knew that He would find them because His Father had sent Him to Israel to teach, preach and touch the lost children of Israel. The only way that this ministry would last and make a real difference in the world would be men who would have faith in Him and His ministry but also men who would walk their faith in and around Israel so others would see that what they believed about Him was true.
This is what James talks about when he wrote “faith without works is dead“, not because you have to have works to be saved but because your faith should be a working, walking faith. One that gets your Spirit moving in God’s direction and in His will. I used to wonder how could Jesus sleep in a boat which was being tossed by the waves in a storm but as I’ve grown in my faith and in my walk with Him I realized that His ministry covered many hundreds of miles. Not every day naturally but all of it was by foot! He and His disciples were bone tired by the end of each day, regardless of the miracles they saw or the healings that He performed. Jesus was the Son of God but He was also the Son of Man, human in all of its respects except that He didn’t have our sinful nature.
So He was tired every day what does that mean to me? It means that we are supposed to be tired from telling others about Him. We should walk with Him each and every day because He said that we would do “greater things than these” if we did. Does your faith in Jesus walk with you each day regardless of the circumstances? It should. If you are a born-again Christian your faith should take you through each day and each trial in your life, regardless of the circumstances or problems that you may face. While it is true that there will be some days that are better than others, for a Christian there is no way of avoiding the bad and the good days. All of them go together and He will see you through each of them.
God loved each of us even before He created the universe and our planet and He had determined at that time that He would come down and save us from our own sinfulness one day. He did it as the Son Who gave Himself as a ransom for many. Make sure that your life in Christ reflects the gratitude of one who has been saved from the fire of hell and eternal separation from God so that others will want to have your hope and your Savior as well.
Can you tell the difference?
My dear children, you come from God and belong to God. You have already won a big victory over those false teachers, for the Spirit in you is far stronger than anything in the world. These people belong to the Christ-denying world. They talk the world’s language and the world eats it up. But we come from God and belong to God. Anyone who knows God understands us and listens. The person who has nothing to do with God will, of course, not listen to us. This is another test for telling the Spirit of Truth from the spirit of deception. 1 John 4:4 MSG https://bible.com/bible/97/1jn.4.4.MSG
Sometimes we can hear it when someone else talks about something that they have an opinion about. The truth is evident in the words that they speak about their beliefs. Then you come across someone else who is not speaking of what they know but what they want from you. Deception can take all kinds of shapes and change them to fit whatever the agenda may be, make sure you know the Bible well enough to spot the difference.
Be thankful in all things
What gets your attention?
In everyday life many of us get distracted because there is so much information out in front of our eyes. We have smart phones and tablets and laptops and TV’s and all of them can truly have almost the same “shows” on them. As distracting as that is…what can you do with the information that you find there? For most information on these media devices the answer would be exactly that…information and very little else. It isn’t very useful and most of the information found is just that and not much more. Some people may find some usefulness in it but most of it just takes up time or clicks or may be used for “posting” on Facebook or Instagram.
So what good is all of this information? Not much more than a time wasting exercise to be truthful about it. Most of our media platforms could be classified as such too. Before all of you who love your media, wherever it comes from, get upset about this part of my post this is simply my opinion and we are all entitled to have one whether you agree with mine or not.
Moving on from there. Our lives could be so much more rewarding and useful if we would seek to place our lives and our pursuits in the hands of Jesus. His Kingdom is coming to Earth one day in the not-so-distant future and if you aren’t ready for it then you need to be getting ready soon…like today! Not one of us has a guarantee on whether we will be alive tomorrow so the actual day of salvation should be today and if not then why? God loves each of us and He has a plan for us. Whether we choose to get onboard His wagon or ship is our choice but think of this for a moment: when the group of believers is taken from this Earth it will be even harder to declare your heart belongs to Jesus. Not long after that event, Christians will not be very popular and it will be dangerous to associate with others who believe the way you want to.
Eventually you will have to choose. Take the chip/mark in order to be able to buy or sell anything or refuse it and be killed because of your decision to not take the mark. One decision will condemn your soul to hell and the other, if you have given your heart to Jesus, will take you to Heaven. Read the book of Revelation, it details most of what I’ve written and it tells in detail how most of those seven years will play out because God told John to write them down nearly two thousand years ago. This is going to come to pass whether you believe it or believe the Bible or not so regardless of your belief it will happen.
God has made a way of salvation through the blood of Jesus who paid the price for all of our sins on the cross. Belief in His atoning work on the cross is one of the first steps toward salvation. The first is realizing that you need to be saved which is when God’s Spirit touches your heart and convicts you of it. At that time please don’t turn away from His touch. He loves you and wants the best for you. All you need to do is accept it and act on it by asking Jesus to come into your life and cleanse your heart, giving you a new heart which can hear all of the wisdom that God has in store for you.
I pray that everyone who reads this will give their heart to Jesus because if you don’t…eternity is a very long time to be separated from your family and God Himself.
Jesus washes their feet
Then he said, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You address me as ‘Teacher’ and ‘Master,’ and rightly so. That is what I am. So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other’s feet. I’ve laid down a pattern for you. What I’ve done, you do. I’m only pointing out the obvious. A servant is not ranked above his master; an employee doesn’t give orders to the employer. If you understand what I’m telling you, act like it—and live a blessed life. John 13:14 MSG https://bible.com/bible/97/jhn.13.14.MSG
This act of love on the part of Jesus would be considered invasive and possibly a sexual perversion today. God loves you and has always been near you, seek Him while their is still time.
Your identity is in Christ
There are many scriptures that cover this subject for believers and the list is a little long but each of them tells us who we are in Christ.
- You are His special possession (1 Peter 2:9, Deut. 14:2)
- You are chosen, picked by God Who created everything (Jeremiah 1:5, Eph. 1:3-4)
- You are treasured (Deut. 7:6, 14:2, 26:18)
- You are irreplaceable (1Thess. 1:4)
- You are loved (1John 4:19, 4:10, 3:16, Rom. 5:8, 8:35-39)
- You are worth dying for (John 3:16, Rom. 5: 7-9)
- You are forgiven (Eph. 1:7, 1 John 1:9)
- You are His child (1 John 3:1, Gal. 3:26)
- You are secure (2 Cor. 1:22, John 10: 28-29)
- You are set free (Rom. 6:18, Gal. 5:1)
- You are precious to Him (Isaiah 43:4)
- You have been set apart (John 15:16-19, 1 Pet. 2:9)
Why do I go to the trouble of listing all of these for you? Because it is needed and necessary. Because if anyone is in Christ He is a new creation and you need to know where you fit into His Kingdom. You can’t learn this in Sunday school and many churches don’t teach this to new believers, they just baptize them and put them on the roll for the numbers.
The problem is that most of us never hear about our identity in Christ until many years down the road and we really need to hear it as soon as we are brought into the family of God. The church has dropped the ball, so to speak, in the decades since prayer was taken out of schools and we truly need to pick it up before it is too late. In some areas of our country, it may already be too late.
We have our salvation when we believe in Jesus as our Savior and repent of our sins but we need to be taught about Him and our identity in Him because the more we know about Him, the better we will know Him. In many religions, your identity is in the religion itself but our identity falls in two places. One of those places is that you can claim your Christian identity as a follower of Jesus but your real identity is a bit deeper than that if you are planning on growing into your faith which all of us are expected to do. We aren’t supposed to remain as “babes in Christ”.
If you are a new Christian or if you are curious about becoming one, look these scriptures up online or in a Bible if you have one. Read them and ask God to show Himself to you and show you His love for you because it is found in every Scripture that is listed above. Let me know how it goes and keep seeking because you will find your answers in Jesus Christ.
Do not hinder the children
People brought babies to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. When the disciples saw it, they shooed them off. Jesus called them back. “Let these children alone. Don’t get between them and me. These children are the kingdom’s pride and joy. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Luke 18:15-17 MSG https://bible.com/bible/97/luk.18.15-17.MSG
We should come to know the Lord as a child with humility and faith.
What kind of mask do you wear?
In our societies all over this world we are afraid of a virus and it’s “offspring” so we wear masks to protect us from them. But have you ever considered the kind of mask that we wear around each other because of religion? Our religious masks make us seem to be “Christians” so we pull them out and wear them on the days that we feel like it such as on Sunday morning or Easter or Christmas but when we leave the company of those we are in at those times we take the mask off. We are ashamed of being identified with Jesus Christ outside of church so we remove the mask and just be ourselves until we either need God’s help or we feel like being a “christian” again for a time.
What will this mask accomplish? Nothing for your eternal salvation that’s for sure. It will only make those who know you feel that being a Christian is useless and hypocritical because it isn’t real. That is the way the world looks at the church and Christians in particular because of Who we claim to believe in and follow. This mask of religion has changed the view of those outside of the church because of this. Religion doesn’t save you.
The mask of religion makes us look very convincing as a Christian but our heart hasn’t been changed! Because with the mask of religion on we haven’t really given our heart to Jesus Christ! Why? Because, like the Pharisees we don’t think we need salvation nor do we need Jesus Christ. This mask causes many people to think that they are saved and that they are Christians but in truth it is a lie of Satan. He knows it and he laughs about it every Sunday in church.
So, how can we get rid of this mask and become Christians for real? First, we have to admit that we need Jesus Christ as our savior and then make Him to focus of our daily lives. Seek to follow Him in prayer and study His Word a little every day because if we don’t we will be living a lie to the outside world and to God as well. We will be behind the mask all over again. What difference does studying God’s Word make in your life and mine? Because it gets your mind and heart in tune with God and His voice so that whenever He speaks to you one day, you will know Who is speaking!
The closer that you draw to Him through reading His Word the closer He will be in your mind and heart to give you strength and purpose to serve in His Kingdom here as well as into eternity. The words that you read in the Bible were inspired by God’s Holy Spirit so they read your spiritual condition while you are reading them. They will be there in your mind when needed even if you haven’t “committed them to memory”, the Holy Spirit will bring them to your mind when you need them. I pray that all who read this may feel the love of God in their hearts and turn to Him and His Son, Jesus Christ, for salvation. Amen
The Living Message of Christ 