JESUS

JESUS

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GREATER WORKS THAN THESE

FATHER, I’ve always wondered how I can do greater works than JESUS while He was on earth but Scripture explains itself.  I can do greater works because JESUS now resides in me (Gal 2:20).

“’Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do…Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it”(John 14:12-14 ESV).

“…he who asks in his name, does so, as being one with him, and as drawing on his resources….it is to ask as one depending entirely on his divine resources” Charles Ross (ref#241, p87).

“Christ not only declares that God will give us needed grace, but He Himself undertakes to see it done” Jonathan Edwards (ref#229, p81).  “Such is the wonderful condescension of the grace of Jesus…” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p30).

“Omnipotence was…entrusted to the man Christ Jesus, that…through the channels of human nature it might put forth its mighty energies” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p180).  “Christ gives His power in us by giving His life in us….When He strengthens…it is not by taking away the sense of feebleness, and giving in its place the feeling of strength.  By no means…He gives…the consciousness of strength in Him” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p182).

FATHER, it is such a habit to be my own ruler—to consult only myself in all situations.  I forget my physical side now has a divine spiritual side—that I have supernatural strength because of CHRIST within.  I ask You, FATHER, for help in grounding a habit of always consulting with JESUS as each situation arises.

“I can do all things through him who strengthens me”(Phil 4:13 ESV).

JESUS

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CHRIST DOES EVERYTHING

“…Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me [JESUS].  And once that person is with me, I hold on and don’t let go….” (John 6:35-38 MSG, brackets mine).

FATHER, You call me into fellowship with JESUS (1 Cor 1:9).  And JESUS employs Himself to my aid.  He enriches me in every way in all speech and all knowledge (1 Cor 1:5).  He maintains me with gifts while I wait for His physical appearance again (1 Cor 1:7).  He also sustains me until the end, guiltless (1 Cor 1:8).  He is my all.

“…the Father has given all power to the Son, that by his hand he may govern, cherish, sustain us, keep us under his guardianship and give assistance to us.  Thus, while we wander far as pilgrims from God, Christ interposes, that he may gradually bring us to full communion with God” John Calvin (ref#113, p321).

“…we have a double need: on the one hand cleansing from defilement, and on the other a new heart with new desires and aspirations….For Christ died to make us clean, and by the inward working of his Holy Spirit he can make us new” John Stott (ref#258, p78-79).

“…many ways Jesus loves his own…visiting them with his gracious presence, instructing and guiding them by his Word and Spirit, preserving them in his providence, strengthening them by his grace, comforting them with his love, and maturing them for his eternal glory” Charles Ross (ref#241, p19).

CHRIST constantly pulls me out of the God-ignoring flames of this earth.  He doesn’t just help me stand every once in a while when I think I need help but constantly rescues me.  O FATHER, I am so thankful.

“…Christ has entered…into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf”(Heb 9:24 ESV).

JESUS

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DELIVERED

FATHER, CHRIST saved me from Your wrath by making me acceptable to You by taking the punishment for my radical, complete, disobedience.  I am redeemed!—by CHRIST’s obedience.  You made the plan; CHRIST made it work (Eph 1:7).

“The cross declares how dire is our condition apart from Jesus.  It announces how deep the sin goes, how profound the rebellion is, how impossible is our plight apart from Help from the outside.  There’s nothing we can do, no effort we can exert, no law we can follow” (by David Mathis, http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-reason-to-be-really-offended).

“We need to be delivered from the power of the devil, we need death and the grave to be conquered—and our Lord Jesus Christ has done it all.  And beyond all that, we need a new nature, because we need not only forgiveness of sins, but to be made fit to have communion and fellowship with God” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Feb 19th).

“He delivers us also from the power and from the pollution of sin.  His work is such that He takes away our sin in a more vital sense.  We are growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord; we are increasingly being made to conform to the image of His Son. We are being delivered—we have been, we are, and we shall be ultimately.  The glorification is coming when He will take away our sin altogether, so that we shall be blameless and faultless and spotless and perfect in His holy presence” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Oct 21st).

“’He died that we might be forgiven’; yes, but ‘He died to make us good’ is equally true” Martyn Lloyd Jones (ref#189, Oct 21st).  He “…gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works”(Titus 2:14 ESV).

“…we must never separate sanctification from justification; we must never talk about a kind of series of separate blessings.  It is all one—it all belongs together.  And it is all a matter of this law that condemns us and from which Christ delivers us through the cross and by the gift of new life.  He went to that cruel death on the cross not only so that you and I might have pardon. Thank God, that does come out of it, that is the first thing.  But He did it really to separate, to put aside, a people for Himself as a special treasure and possession who, as Paul puts it, should be ‘zealous of good works,’ who should live a holy life” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189. Oct 21st).

JESUS

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SIN’S REMEDY

FATHER, You have put us all in the prison of sin.  We all start out in identical conditions (Rom 3:9).  Then You invite all to come to the cross of CHRIST.

“The cross of Christ triumphs only in the hearts of believers over the devil and the flesh, over sin and wickedness, when they lift their eyes to behold the power of the resurrection” John Calvin (ref#313, p82-83)

“…God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone”(Rom 11:32 NLT).

“Sin is every human being’s core disease.  It is completely beyond the power of any human being to escape it.  It separates you from God, for whom you were created. It damages every aspect of your personhood.  It makes it impossible for you to be what God created you to be and to do what God designed you to do.  It robs you of inner contentment and peace, and it puts you at war with other human beings. It renders you blind, weak, self-oriented, and rebellious.  It reduces all of us to fools, and ultimately it leads to death.  Sin is an unmitigated, almost incalculable disaster…you and I have no ability whatsoever to escape from the hold that sin has on us.  It is the moral Vice-Grip that has held the heart of every person who has ever lived” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Feb 29th).

“It is the cross of Christ that brings us all down to the same place. ‘All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.’ The differences between nations and groups within them and individuals are nothing when you look at the cross of Christ.  We are all miserable, helpless, hopeless sinners” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, April 15th).

“…the eternal Word Who became man, uniting a true human nature to his divine nature…the two natures joined in the one Person forever….if your personal problem of sin is ever to be remedied in a biblical way, it will be remedied only as you have personal dealings with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Such is the unique stand of the Christian faith: the sinner in all his need, united to the Savior in all the fullness of His grace; the sinner in his naked need, and the Savior in His almighty power, brought directly together in the gospel.  That reality is the glory of God’s good news to sinners” Albert N. Martin (ref#221, p10-11)!

JESUS

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JESUS LED BY THE SPIRIT

FATHER, the familiar and habitual life I lead humanly is that of selfish desire which leads to unholy action.  This is my born-with nature—a desire to do what I want to do.

“…the lie of autonomy…tells you that you are an independent human, that your life belongs to you, and that you have the right to live your life as you please” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Nov 30th).

But when I study the life of JESUS on earth, I do not see Him doing what He wants to do, even though He is the Son of GOD!  Instead, He emptied Himself to allow You, FATHER, to give Him the fullness of Your SPIRIT:

“Our Lord’s life was mapped out for Him.  He came to do the Father’s will, and that will was unfolded and interpreted to Him by the Holy Spirit….He was led of the Spirit, taught of the Spirit, and strengthened in the Spirit….He was constantly dependent upon the Spirit…” Samuel Chadwick (ref#195, p79).  “…he was anointed by the Spirit to be a herald and witness of his Father’s grace…” John Calvin (ref#113, p318).

“…the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.  He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge…” (Isa 11:2-4 ESV).

JESUS, the Son of GOD and also the Son of Man, belonged to GOD; I also belong to GOD. “We don’t own our mentality, our spirituality, our emotionality, our psychology, our personality, or our physicality.  We are not independent beings and we do not have a natural right to do with our physical and spiritual selves whatever we desire to do” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Nov 30th).

FATHER, I do not want to judge situations with my own eyes and ears but with the wisdom of the SPIRIT within me.

JESUS

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THE DIVINE REMEDY FOR SIN

“A biblical Christian is one who has seriously considered the one divine remedy for sin….all of our true help comes down from above and meets us where we are” Albert N. Martin (ref#221, p9).

FATHER, I lose my way around the Bible if I take my eyes off JESUS (Alistair Begg). When GOD first spoke of evil in Gen 3:15, He announced His remedy to defeat the now prince of the power of earth’s air, satan.  A descendent of Adam would crush his head.  Throughout the Old Testament, I see glimpses of GOD working out His plan until finally JESUS, born of a woman (Adam’s descendent) comes to earth.  The entire Bible presents GOD’s plan to redeem men back to Him.  It portrays a loving GOD’s effort to save a people for Himself.

There are few passages that capture the disaster of sin and what it does to people made in God’s image better than Genesis 6:5-6:

“The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” (ESV)

“Note two things from this passage.  First, the affect of sin on people was deep, heart deep.  Sin is not just a matter of bad behavior.  It is a condition of the heart.  That’s why you cannot free yourself from it.  Second, the effects of sin on you and me are comprehensive. Note the words ‘every intention’ coupled with the words ‘only evil continually.’  But the passage tells us more.  God was not satisfied leaving us in the disaster of sin.  The disease that infected the heart of every human being produced sorrow in his heart.  But his sorrow was not just the sorrow of remorse or the sorrow of judgment; it was the sorrow of grace.  The words of Genesis 6:8—‘But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD’—tell you that Genesis 6 is not the end of the story.  God would not just punish sin; he would raise up a nation out of which his Son would come to live and die to deliver us from it.  The cross of his Son stands as a lasting reminder of just how desperate our need is for the grace that that cross represents” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Feb 29th).

“…’there is no condemnation’ to a poor soul that shelters itself beneath the cross of Jesus” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, May 5th).

ASSURANCES

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REVIEWING

I am becoming more and more concerned with who is “liking” my posts on Facebook and Instagram.

I have dedicated two years of blogs to give you, my friends, an opportunity to check your spirit—whether or not you can affirm you’re going to heaven.  Every one of the posts is designed to create a “yes” answer—or to have a great desire to answer “yes.”

I realize now that since this information is scattered over two years you can read only sporadic posts and conclude you’re heaven-bound.  Humanly we all can be good sometimes.  But, to answer “yes” to two years worth of questions it takes more than what is humanly possible.  Do you recognize your need for supernatural intervention in your life?

The devil has every-which-way schemes to make people feel they are in GOD’s graces.   In reading “Pilgrim’s Progress,” I am reminded again of his slyness.

Let me ask you how you regard sin?  Does your own sin bother you?  How often do you think about it?  Are you content to allow the HOLY SPIRIT to show it to you?

If sin is not an interesting subject to you, beware.  Until GOD Himself plants you face to face with your deep-seated sin you will not need JESUS to pay with His life for it.  A true Christian needs JESUS.  One does not become a Christian because it is a pleasing lifestyle.  Just choosing to be a Christian does not make you a Christian.

I so love all of you who read my posts, but beware, make sure you are honest with yourself; it’s a matter of your home for eternity.

CHRISTMAS POST 2017

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CHRISTMAS

The celebration of CHRIST’s birth brings to an end the 1st covenant between GOD and His people—the tiny nation, Israel. No more will sacrificing and rituals be the way to GOD (Luke 2:32,34-35). No more can Israel rest on the fact that they are heirs of Abraham and thus GOD’s people (Luke 3:8-9).

John the Baptist first announces the 2nd covenant: He proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins instead of animal sacrifices (Luke 3:3). JESUS was about to challenge all men, Jew as well as Gentile.

One thing that stands out in reading the four Gospels is how the actions of JESUS create a visible distinction between people whose hearts are hard toward him (chaff) or receptive toward Him (wheat). CHRIST shook people up; they either loved or hated Him!

John the Baptist said of Him, “…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Luke 3:16-17 ESV).

“Whether being baptized ‘with the Holy Spirit and fire’ will be positive (involving the coming of the purifying fire of the Spirit at Pentecost, Acts 1:8; 2:3) or negative (involving the divine judgment of fire; Luke 9:54;12:49;17:29) depends on the response of the individual person” (ref#125, p1953, [Luke 3:16]).

In our day JESUS speaks just as defining-ly through the written Word. His Presence now with us demands a response. No more assuming we are GOD’s people.

FATHER, am I wheat or chaff? If I’m ever to rest in peace I must know.

Beginning in 2018 this blog plans to address the topic of assurances of salvation. It will continually ask the question, “Am I going to heaven?”

As I celebrate CHRIST’s birth today, I thank Him for coming to earth not only to provide a way of everlasting life for me but also that I might know for sure NOW whether or not I have everlasting life.

JESUS has come. His presence divides. Am I chaff or wheat?