We know that we have come to know Him if we obey His commands.
The man who says, “I know Him,” But does not do what He commands
is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys His word, God’s
love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in Him:
Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.
(I. John1.3-6).
HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!
We continually give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
as we are praying for you,
For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you
have and show for all the saints,
Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this hope you heard in
the in the past in the message of the truth of the Gospel (Best News Ever).
(Colossians 1.3-5).
HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!
And His gifts were varied; He Himself appointed and
gave to us some to be apostles (special messengers),
some prophets (inspired preachers and expounders),
some evangelists (preachers of the Gospel, traveling
missionaries), some pastors (shepherds of His flock)
and teachers.
His intention was the perfecting and full equipping
of the saints (His consecrated people), that they should
do the work of ministering toward building up Christ’s
body (the church).
That it might develop until we all attain oneness in the faith
and in the faith and in the comprehension of the full and
accurate knowledge of the Son of God, that we might arrive
at real maturity and completeness which is nothing less
than the standard height of Christ’s own perfection, the
measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the
completeness found in Him.
So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro
between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every
changing wind of doctrine, the prey of cunning and
cleverness of unscrupulous men, in every shifting form
of trickery in inventing errors to mislead.
Rather, let our lives lovingly express truth. Enfolded
in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into
Him Who is the Head, Christ.
For because of Him the whole body, the church, in all
its various parts, closely joined and firmly knit together
by the joints and ligaments with which it is supplied, when
each part is working properly, grows to full maturity,
building itself up in love.
(Ephesians 4.11-16).
HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!
Put on God’s whole armor, that you may be able successfully
to stand up against the strategies and deceits of the devil.
For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood, but against the
despotisms, against the powers, against the spirits who are the
world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces
of wickedness in the supernatural sphere.
Therefore put on God’s complete armor, that you may be able to
resist and stand your ground on the evil day of danger and having
done all that the crisis demands, to stand firmly in your place.
Stand therefore having tightened the belt of truth around your loins
and having put on the breastplate of integrity and of moral rectitude
and right standing with God,
and having shod your feet in preparation to face the enemy with the
firm-footed stability, the promptness, and the readiness produced by
the good news of the Gospel of peace.
Lift up over all the covering shield of saving faith, upon which you can
quench all the flaming missiles of the wicked one.
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword that the Spirit wields,
which is the Word of God.
Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and entreaty. To that end
keep alert and watch with strong purpose and perseverance, interceeding
in behalf of all the saints who are God’s consecrated people.
(Ephesians 6.11-18).
AMEN!
God the Creator and Lord decided to commit Himself to the humans
He created and became one of us so we can be His.
His justice and His Kingdom are proclaimed in His Word.
His Word is Truth and everlasting.
The more we are informed and instructed by His Word
the better we learn to obey Him.
God’s decision to forgive our sins on the basis of His sacrifice
and our faith is His righteousness and glory.
The Father pronounces us to be righteous because of the faith
He gave us in His Son Jesus Christ.
He pronounces us to be His sons because we are accepted in
His beloved Son.
He pronounces us to be free. He pronounces us to be holy.
He pronounces us to be wise.
” But now, apart from the Law, the righteousness of God has
been disclosed and is attested by the Law and the prophets,
the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all
who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by His grace
as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God put
forth as a sacrifice of atonement by His blood, effective through faith.
He did this to show His righteousness, because in His divine forbearance
He has passed over the sins previously committed;
it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and
that He justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.
Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law?
By that of works? No, but by the Law of Faith.
For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from the works
prescribed by the Law.”
(Romans 3.21-28).
HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU! WE PRAISE YOUR NAME FOREVER! THANK YOU LORD JESUS!
TRUTH
The knowledge of the One True God totally
depends on God’s self revelation.
In every other field of study we depend
on our effort, exploration and education.
Our only source of correct information
about God is His Word Who became flesh
as Jesus Christ full of grace and truth, the
Unique Son of the Father, the Eternal I AM,
the way, the truth and the life.
THE LIFE
” The life was manifested and we have seen
and bear witness and declare to you that
eternal life which was with the Father and
was manifested to us.” ( I. John 1.2).
THE WAY
He is the way and the truth. There is no
other way to access the Father and He
is the truth of God’s revelation full of glory.
THE TRUTH
Here is what Karl Barth says in Church Dogmatics:
” As a man among men He is a human Thou, and as
such distinct from all mere things. Now as a Thou,
man is not merely an existential determination of
the I, but the sum of all the objective reality of
the world”.
This is another way of saying that He is The Truth.
GOD BECAME A MAN IN JESUS CHRIST
Again continuing from where we left, Karl Barth says:
” And in Jesus Christ God becomes and is man, the
fellow- man of all men. As God He is not merely one
of many such fellow-men, nor is He merely the idea
of fellow-humanity. We are speaking of ” the Father’s Son,
by nature God.” He became and is man, the fellow-man of
all men; and therefore Thou, not merely in a simple, but in
a supremely objective reality, the human Thou, which as
such is also directly the Thou of the one eternal God.”
SINCE GOD IS WITH US (IMMANUEL)
THE WHOLE HUMAN SITUATION CHANGES
The fact that we just saw here changes the scope,
prospect and context of what it means to be human.
Again, Karl Barth continues:
” The fact is rather that God Himself, in His deep mercy
has taken upon Himself to exist also in human being
and essence in His Son, and therefore to become and be
a man, and therefore this incomparable Thou.
God Himself is in the world, earthly, conceivable and
visible, as He is this man. We have to do with God
Himself as we have to do with this man.
God Himself speaks when this man speaks in human
speech. God Himself acts and suffers when this man
speaks and suffers as a man. God Himself triumphs
when this One triumphs as a man. The human speaking
and acting and suffering and triumphing of this one man
directly concerns us all, and His history is our history
of salvation which changes the whole human situation,
just because God Himself is its human subject in His Son,
just because God Himself has assumed and made His own
our human nature and kind in His Son, just because God
Himself came into this world in His Son, and as one of us
” a guest this world of us He trod.” ”
THE HOLY SPIRIT COMES
As Karl Barth continues:
“And as and because the Holy Spirit is the coming of
Jesus Christ Himself, and His witness this disclosure
to men concerning themselves, He and His witness are
in fact the self revelation of Jesus Christ and as such
the basis of the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
We have to realize that God’s own revealedness for us
is God’s own person and God’s own work.
All the comfort, all the power, all the truth of this
revealedness depends upon the fact that it is with God
that we are dealing.
All our understanding of this revealedness depends upon
the fact that we identify it with God Himself, ruling out all
other possibilities but God’s possibility. We have therefore to
realize that as the recipient of revelation man is brought
under God’s judgement. It is only because of this that he is
brought under God’s promise. It is only because of this that
God meets him as the One who intercedes for him, who
undertakes and directs his cause, who does not quench his
own ability and will and accomplishment but subordinates
it to His own, since man must always be subordinated to God,
if God’s glory is to triumph and man is to be helped.”
HUMAN FREEDOM VS DIVINE FREEDOM
Again continuing from above:
” We are to understand, therefore, that for God to be
revealed involves the dislodging of man from the
estimation of his own freedom, and his enrichment with
the freedom of the children of God. This negation, the
negation of man through God’s eternal grace and mercy, is
only the obverse of his position as a child of God, as a member
of the covenant between God and man. But this obviously means
that the negation of man cannot be put into effect any more than
his position as a child of God except through God’s own action.
Thus God’s possibility triumphs over the very imprisonment
in which we are involved, where we only fulfill our own
possibilities and only believe in our own possibilities.
The self-enclosed uniqueness of man, who only has and
knows his own freedom, is overarched and enclosed and
finally relativized through the uniqueness of God and His
freedom in which He is resolved to have fellowship with this
man and once and for all to be his Lord.”
HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS!
ALIVE WITH CHRIST
We know that our old self was
nailed to the cross with Him
in order that our body of sin
might be made ineffective and
inactive for evil, that we might
no longer be slaves of sin.
For when a person dies, he or she
is freed from sin.
Now if we have died with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live
with Him,
Because we know that Christ being
once raised from the dead, will never
die again, death no longer has power
over Him.
For by the death He died, He died to sin
once for all, and the life He lives, He is
living to God ( in unbroken relationship).
Even so consider yourselves also dead to
sin and your relationship to it broken, but
alive to God ( in unbroken relationship)
in Christ.
( Romans 6.6-11).
Consider the following:
1) Your life is hid in Christ.
2) The life you live is no longer yours.
3) If you have already died with Him
you live with Him, through Him.
4) Therefore the life you live henceforth
is the life of Jesus Christ.
4) You are dead to sin, but
alive to righteousness.
5) His life is true life.
6) Jesus Christ is the way, the truth
and the life.
7) Jesus Christ is the resurrection
and the life.
Every good gift and every perfect gift
is from above, and comes down from
the Father of lights, with whom there
is no variation or shadow of turning.
Of His own will He brought us forth
by the word of truth, that we might
be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.
( James1.17 and 18).