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Psalms 69:29-36 But I am poor and sorrowful; Let Your
salvation, O God, set me up on high. I will praise the name of God with a song,
And will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This
also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bull, Which has horns and hooves. The humble shall see this and be glad; And you who seek
God, your hearts shall live. For the LORD hears the poor, And does not despise
His prisoners. Let heaven and earth praise Him, The seas and everything that
moves in them. For God will save Zion And build the cities of Judah, That they
may dwell there and possess it. Also, the descendants of His servants shall
inherit it, And those who love His name shall dwell in it. Father I come before you in the name
of Jesus. I pray for true repentance in all, that hearts will be cleansed so
bodies will become temples for Your Spirit to take up residence in all that
don’t know you like they should. We give you all the glory and praise. Amen!
Romans 8:12-17 NKJV
Last
week I closed with some examples of what I had to choose, to have a Spiritual
birth. These were heart wrenching examples of repentance for me after 57 years
of believing in a religion for my salvation. I used these examples because I
realized they were mans laws and religious doctrine that the Word of God doesn’t
support. Those and many more of any religion are not supported in the Bible.
They are a form of idolatry to God because people put their faith and belief in
things of man, the world, and themselves for salvation. Repentance goes far
beyond lying, stealing, fornication, gossip, covetousness, adultery, etc. True
repentance is, the desire in your heart of turning from the sinful actions and
thoughts, mans point of view, what you believe in, and rejecting non-scriptural
religious doctrine. It’s being willing to repent and give it all to God, meaning
forsaking all you know and willing to take on a mindset of a newborn babe, and
allowing God to reprogram your heart and mind. This is why it is so important
to pick up your Bible and start searching for the way, truth, and life. John
14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. We have to make an effort to seek,
ask, and knock on Jesus door for salvation. Luke 11:9 "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you;
seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. If we aren’t truly interested in
seeking our eternal life, God knows this because He is omniscient (all knowing),
and he will not give you the gift of grace, because He doesn’t want anyone in
His kingdom that will not give it all to Him.
My God
is a jealous God, this is stated in the Commandments, is your god/God jealous?
He wants all of our attention, devotion, obedience, love, prayer request, etc. Without
paraphrasing the first commandment like, “Have no strange gods before thee”,
here is what the first and second commandment states in its entirety. Exodus 20:3-6 "You shall have no other gods before
Me. 4
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall
not bow down to them nor serve them. For
I, the LORD your God, am a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to
the third and fourth generations
of those who hate Me, (This goes right along with what we
studied last week in Romans
8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity (hate) against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can
be.) 6
but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
This
is what the last couple months of lessons has been all about, manmade doctrine,
sin nature, and self. John the Baptist preached repentance, Jesus preached
repentance, and the apostles preached repentance.
Matthew
3:1-2 In those days John the Baptist came preaching
in the wilderness of Judea, 2 and saying, "Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!"
Mark
1:14-15 Now after John was put in
prison, Jesus came to
Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15 and
saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of
God is at hand. Repent, and believe
in the gospel."
Acts
8:20-23 But Peter said to him, "Your money perish with you, because
you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! 21 You have
neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the
sight of God. 22
Repent therefore of this your wickedness,
and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. 23 For I see
that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity."
Paul
is making this statement to the men of Athens in Acts 17:22. Acts 17:29-31 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we
ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone,
something shaped by art and man's devising.
30 Truly, these times of ignorance God
overlooked, but now commands all men
everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will
judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given
assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead."
How
can we expect God to come into our lives if we aren’t willing to give it all up
and start new. After all a person has been living under sin since the day they
were born and repentance is being willing to start a new life of Godliness. I
have had people ask me if I experienced the presence of God the first time I
prayed and asked Jesus into my life, and my answer was and is no. I prayed many
times before I could actually testify that I had the assurance of the Holy
Spirit living inside me and the assurance of going to Heaven when I die. I had
to search deep within my spirit and sort out all that was not verified in God’s
Word and reject it. God could then see into my heart and know that I was
willing to give it all to Him. Then He sent His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to
take up residence within me so that I would have the power of the Holy Spirit
to say no to sin and the sanctification part began. It is only with the power
of the Holy Spirit living within a person that the sanctification process will
start and continue till the day we die because our soul and spirit are housed
within a sinful corrupted body (the sin nature). Every human being born on
planet earth since Adam and Eve were/are born with this sin nature, except
Jesus of course. This is all made possible by believing in what Jesus did on
the Cross and only this.
I hope
this has helped everyone to understand what repentance is all about and what is
necessary for one to do. Often times people don’t realize the depth of
repentance and what is involved.
Now
for this weeks scripture:
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the
flesh, to live according to the flesh. Paul starts out verse 12 with brethren, which indicates
he is addressing fellow believers. He is telling his listeners and us that if
we have a spiritual birth, then we are in debt to Jesus for dying on the Cross
for us. Jesus died for us as the unblemished lamb when it should have been us
dying on the Cross. We owe Jesus our life and should be living for Him and not
of our works if we claim to be true believers. There is nothing we can do on
our own to please God. We have to put our faith in the finished work of the
Cross. Cain tried to please God by offering up fruit of his own hands and God
didn’t like it. Abel on the other hand offered up a first born lamb that God had
blessed him with in the form of a sacrifice and thanks. Abel trusted God to
provide for him, where as Cain depended on himself for the things he needed in
life. Genesis 4:2-4 Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel.
Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 And in the
process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of
the ground to the LORD. 4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and
of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering,
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will
die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will
live. Here again
it is referring to living according to the flesh. If we live according to our
works/flesh then we have no eternal life. A person living this way will not
make it to Heaven, eternity will be spent in Hell. If the Holy Spirit be in you
then you have the power of the Holy Spirit to put the deeds of the body/flesh
to death and live a life for God. You will be able to sense the joy of Gods
kingdom here on earth. You will have peace knowing Jesus is in control. This
doesn’t mean that a true believer won’t experience trials and tribulation, but
when those times come along you will have peace knowing Jesus is in control and
you will put your faith and trust in Him and accept the outcome no matter what
it might be. Galatians 5:24; Romans 13:14; John 16:13
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
these are sons of God. This
verse is referring to anyone that has been Born Again and continues to put
their faith in God by believing in Jesus death, burial, and resurrection they
are considered sons/daughters of God. When a person becomes a true believer
they are adopted into God’s family. If you haven’t had a Spiritual Birth then
you aren’t part of God’s family. He knows you, and he loves you because he
created you, but if you are living according to the flesh, then He hates your
lifestyle and you aren’t part of his family. It is through the leading of the
Holy Spirit that we are sanctified. This sanctification is an ongoing process
till the day we die. The Holy Spirit will convict a person of wrong doing which
in turn causes the true believe to repent. Sometimes this can be a long process
because our flesh doesn’t want to give up the sin. It could take years to have
dominion over the sin, but with perseverance, standing firm in the faith,
putting on Gods armor daily, and giving it to Jesus, victory will be obtained.
Some of our sinful ways go away immediately while others, a war wages inside of
us against the flesh. Even Paul had to battle his flesh. Romans 7:15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For
what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. Psalm 25:4, 5; Psalm 143:10
15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage
again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out,
"Abba, Father." Paul
is explaining here that a true believer is adopted by Father God, and when this
happens they are set free from the bondage of the Mosaic Laws, meaning a
believer puts their faith in the power of the finished work of the Cross. They
no longer have the fear of trying to keep all the laws in order to enter into
Gods kingdom. Before becoming a true believer the fear of keeping all the laws
through our own effort was present, but when a person puts their faith in Jesus
that fear is gone. It is gone because Jesus kept each and every law for us. He
was without sin. He was the unblemished sacrificial lamb. He is the only person
and will be the only person to walk the face of this earth that was sinless. Hebrews 2:14, 15; 1 John 4:18; Galatians
4:6
Some people claim Mary was
sinless, which is false. She was a virgin meaning she had never known any man. If
Mary was sinless then her parents would have had to be sinless, as well as all
previous generation clear back to Adam and Eve because of the inherited sin
nature from Adam and Eve. If this was the case then there is no such thing as
the sin nature and everyone is sinless and never does anything evil, if so, then
Jesus death for sin was in vain. Romans
3:23 for all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God, If
this was true then God’s word contradicts itself, and the Bible is a lie. If a
person wants to believe Mary was sinless, it is their choice, but they are
being deceived by wolves in sheep’s clothing.
16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit
that we are children of God, 17 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. Verses
16 and 17 are practically saying the same thing as the previous verses. After a
Spiritual Birth the Holy Spirit is within us and in a sense unites with our
spirit and bears or reveals many things to us that we have done and do that are
wrong. The Holy Spirit becomes our sin alarm even when we contemplate doing
something wrong. This is such a change in a new believer from their previous
life it is one of those pieces of evidence of a Spiritual Birth. We can boldly
proclaim we are a child of God.
Being a child of God then
we become heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus. All that is given to Jesus
is also given to us. This isn’t just all good things because a true believer
suffers just as Jesus did when he walked the earth, and continues to do so.
What I’m getting at is Jesus wept for mankind, He had compassion for mankind,
He loves mankind, etc. He is still doing this today, do you know why? It is
because his fellow Jewish brothers the Pharisees, Sadducees, Gentiles, and the
people of today would not and do not believe in Him, His teaching, His
miracles, etc. This is so very true today, people still will not believe in
Him. They know Him and who He is, but don’t truly believe. They still place
their faith in the teachings of their religion. Even when they searching the
Bible for the truth and find it, they still don’t believe what the Word of God
states. If Jesus was in human form today, stood before them, and told them
their religious doctrine is false, they would not believe Him. Now don’t get me
wrong, because some of the things certain denominations practice are Biblical
and correct. This breaks my heart seeing people that won’t believe in what the
Bible teaches, because they are lost in the valley of darkness and can’t find
their way out. They are bound for Hell unless they somehow come to their senses
and repent and give it all to God Almighty.
Just as we suffer with
Jesus, we also have the assurance of a glorified body like Jesus at some point
in time. As a believer we are heirs and partake of these rewards here on earth
when we become a true believer; Blessed; Chosen; Predestined; Adopted;
Accepted; Redeemed; Forgiven; Enlightened; Inheritance; Sealed; Assured. Ephesians 1:1-14
For I am not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ,
for it is the power of God
to salvation for everyone who believes,
Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a
steadfast spirit within me.
Unless you are Born Again,
you cannot enter into Heaven, the Kingdom of God."
Bill Wiesbrock
Last Week’s Trivia: What does the Bible and a horse
farrier have in common?
Answer: The one common link is a foundation.
A horse farrier will take a piece of steel and start shaping it to the hoof of
the horse. He keeps measuring the hoof, heating the steel red hot, pounding it
into shape, and when he gets it just right he starts the final process of
heating and dipping it in water to temper the steel. The farrier knows he has
to put a good shoe on a horse to give it a solid foundation.
God
does this with a true believer by instilling in us to read and studying His
Holy Word, the Bible. He start shaping us from the inside out by giving us a
new heart and writing His laws in it. He starts pounding on us to get rid of
our old ways and reveals the truth to us. He heats us up with trials and then
tempers us as a result of these trials and tribulations. All of this gives us a
solid foundation to stand fast as his loyal servant. Without this we will
wander back to our old ways.
This week’s Trivia: As the deer pants for the water
brooks. What is this phrase all about?
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