Jesus – Page 92

544. Why Jesus Taught Two Covenants (Part 1): The Law Tree

April 17, 2016 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

We begin a series on why Jesus ministered both the Old Covenant and the New. Before we get to some of the teachings of Jesus, we'll lay a foundation that provides reasons why Jesus did this. We'll start at the beginning with Adam in the garden being faced with an element of law already at work when he was commanded not to eat from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It's the tree of law, and Adam's motivation on why he chose to eat from it may sound familiar in the lives of many Christians today.

Our Breakthroughs Come By God’s Grace, But Grace Must Be Received

April 15, 2016 by Sandra McCollom

I thoroughly enjoy processing my grace journey by thinking through how God’s grace plays into every single part of my life. I had a pretty rough period of time for about 12 weeks earlier in the year, but God has really given me some huge breakthroughs recently. I’ll tell you more about those in the future, but my whole experience got me thinking about how our breakthroughs come.

How do our breakthroughs come? By God’s grace!

How do we receive God’s grace? By Faith!

Faith is not a feeling we have to work up. It’s simply trusting God.

So God is always extending His grace to us, but if it’s true that we receive His grace by faith – by believing – then it would also be true that we could stop receiving His grace through unbelief or wrong believing.

This doesn’t mean God stops extending His grace. He is always supplying grace to us, but we still have to do our part which is to receive His gift of grace by faith.

There are many ways we can stop-up the pipeline of God’s grace through unbelief. Maybe, after you read this post, God will show you something specific that you’re doing to stop up that pipeline. One way I used to do this was by receiving guilt and condemnation. Instead of receiving God’s forgiveness provided to me through His shed blood, when I sinned I would try to pay for my own sins by feeling guilty and condemned. As a Christian, I was believing wrong by thinking I had to pay for my own sins.

I very rarely ever mess with guilt and condemnation anymore because… (see Romans 8:1)

If the devil does try to bury me with guilt and condemnation I turn away from it and turn instead to God’s grace once again by believing (trusting) that I am:

1.) Unconditionally Loved (see Romans 8:35-39) and (Psalm 36:5)

2.) Completely Forgiven (see Matthew 26:27-28) and (Ephesians 1:7)

3.) Righteous through Jesus!! (see Philippians 3:9) and (2 Corinthians 5:21)

So remember that the breakthroughs in your life come by way of God’s grace and you can always choose to receive God’s grace through faith!

You can’t earn it. You can’t do enough to deserve it. You’ll never be able to merit it. But THAT’S O.K. because God’s grace is His unearned, undeserved, unmerited favor and it is a free gift to you. It’s for your salvation, when you trust in Jesus and receive Him as your Lord and Savior, and also for your everyday life, as you choose to receive it by trusting in Him to help you through the circumstances of your daily life instead of trusting in yourself and your own efforts!

Have a great weekend living in God’s grace!

#FreedomLiving

If you have not yet made Jesus your Savior and received the wonderful joy that His finished work on the cross has provided for you to live in, please visit my page here titled Jesus In The Driver’s Seat. On this page I explain the good news of the gospel and you will have the opportunity to pray a prayer of salvation, making Jesus your Savior! Jesus loves you and His arms are wide open!

Sandra McCollom

Freedom From Legalism

April 14, 2016 by Sandra McCollom

Do you find yourself wondering if you have done enough for God? Are you looking for a to-do list to accomplish for God in order to be acceptable to Him? When you struggle with sin do you think you would be able to overcome if you would just try harder? Do you have a hard […]

The post Freedom From Legalism appeared first on Sandra McCollom.

Your Sin Nature was Cut Out by Jesus

April 13, 2016 by Clint Byars

Do believers still have a sin nature? Do we have a partially righteous nature and a partially sinful nature?

You may have heard the “white dog, black dog” theory. This idea says that believers still have a root of sin or “sin nature” after being born again. The dogs come in as an illustration, meaning you have two natures (dogs) in you and whichever one you feed will grow. You will always struggle with sin because it’s still part of your identity.

I disagree. Why?

Colossians 2:9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Verse 11 says a circumcision has taken place and your dead, sinful self was removed. Couple that with these truths:

Jesus became your sin so you could become righteous 2 Corinthians 5:21
You were dead but have been made alive in him (see above passage)
His blood/sacrifice has sanctified you and made you holy Hebrews 10:10
Righteousness is by faith and not by works Romans 3:21-22

We’re left with the conclusion that we are currently righteous because we have put our faith in Jesus and as a result we are made alive in him and he has given us his righteousness. The old you was crucified with Jesus and the new you is like him. I think it’s safe to say that Jesus doesn’t have a sin nature.

Some may say that we are still partially sinful because we still have a physical body or flesh. The word of God distinguishes between our bodies and our flesh. Our bodies can be yielded to sin or righteousness, it presents our physicality as caught in the middle of the world and the new man, able to choose sin or yield to righteousness. Flesh is described as a mindset or our own efforts to be made righteous through works.

The Gnostics believed that the physical body was inherently sinful and evil. Much of the New Testament was written to refute Gnostic thought, including the idea that the body is inherently sinful. You do not still have a sin nature because you have a physical body.

Why do you still sin? That’s easy, because you choose it. It’s just as easy, if not easier to yield to righteousness as it is to choose sin. Because you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, you have a righteous nature. You have a steady flow of grace directly from the indwelling life/spirit of God that strengthens your inner man to live above the power of sin and in the righteousness that you’ve been given in Jesus, but you have to yield to that influence to live in that power rather than turning to the physical world to fulfill your desires.

Romans 6:13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.

So why do you still sin? Again, not because it comes natural to you but because you’ve opened yourself to sin. There is much more opportunity to live in the power of grace than there is opportunity to sin. It may be time to meditate on God’s word until you change your perspective and believe that his spirit can feed you and satisfy you much better than the world ever could.

Choose well. Choose life. Yield to righteousness. Soon you’ll naturally look on the outside like you already do on the inside.

Ephesians 3:16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

The post Your Sin Nature was Cut Out by Jesus appeared first on Forward Ministries.

Your Struggle Is Not With People

April 11, 2016 by Sandra McCollom

It really helps me to remember that my battle is not with people, but with the devil and his evil spirits that are holding people captive. It even helps me pray for people with a greater level of compassion when I keep this in mind.

When I pray, I don’t come against the person themselves in prayer, but the spirit of fear, jealousy, control, manipulation, violence, anger, pride, intimidation, depression etc. – whatever that spirit is that seems to be holding that person in bondage.

I pray for myself this way as well. For instance, I might pray, “I bind up this spirit of fear that is trying to hold me captive in this particular area in the name of Jesus. I loose a spirit of peace and calm over my life in this area right now. (see Matthew 16:19) God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (see 2 Timothy 1:7) I receive God’s love afresh for myself and I know His perfect love drives out every fear. (See 1 John 4:18)

Jesus gave us Christians authority over all the power of the enemy! This is really good news!

Colossians 2:15 says, “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities [those supernatural forces of evil operating against us], He made a public example of them [exhibiting them as captives in His triumphal procession], having triumphed over them through the cross.” – AMP

and

Luke 10:19 says, “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” – NKJ

I told you it was really good news. We have been given authority over the devil and his personal assistants and we need to use it!

I do want to make one clarification here in case anyone would have this question. Am I saying there’s never a time to confront a person directly? Definitely not. In fact, I believe in Spirit-led confrontation, but it must be Spirit-led and it must be done in love for it to do any good.

We have to remember that only God can change a person’s heart by His grace. Remembering this keeps us doing our job and allows God to do His job. Sometimes the person is living in such deception that they either can’t see or purposely won’t admit to the fact that they are not living their lives led by the Holy Spirit, but have succumbed to living under the influence of another kind of spirit. We can pray that the blinders of deception be removed from their eyes.

Steve prayed for me all those years that I was living under the influence of a spirit of legalism and thank God he did. I am now free from that spirit’s influence and I am living my life once again under the leadership of the Holy Spirit!

Your Struggle Is Not With People

April 11, 2016 by Sandra McCollom

Jesus gave us Christians authority over all the power of the enemy! This is really good news!

and

Luke 10:19 says, “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” – NKJ

I told you it was really good news. We have been given authority over the devil and his personal assistants and we need to use it!

Your Battle Is Not With People

April 11, 2016 by Sandra McCollom

Jesus gave us Christians authority over all the power of the enemy! This is really good news!

and

Luke 10:19 says, “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” – NKJ

I told you it was really good news. We have been given authority of the devil and his personal assistants and we need to use it!

Sandra McCollom

How to Cultivate Hope

April 6, 2016 by Paul Ellis

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. (1 Pet 3:15) We Christians ought to be a hope-filled people but a mixed-up gospel has made us a wishful people. We ought to be strong in the faith but religion has weakened us […]

542. Repeated Repentance vs. Forever Forgiveness

April 3, 2016 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Continuing from last week's discussion about 2 Chronicles 7:14, a passage that was directed at Israelites who were under the law... In that first covenant, they repeatedly found themselves in a position of needing to turn from sin whenever a command was broken. They were continuously seeking the face of God, praying, and offering sacrifices so they could be forgiven again and again, over and over. Contrast that with Christ, who obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old way that came through Moses. In this new ministry, forgiveness, justification and sanctification came through what He did by the shedding of His blood, once and for all.

HELP! I Am Trying to Love

April 2, 2016 by Dudley Hall

I've had it with exhortations to love more, or better, or longer. In my youth I sang the song, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love..." I know we should love our neighbors, heck, even our enemies. I can see the damage being done between religious and political rivals. I wish the world would just stop fighting and love one another. Still if I hear another preacher tell me to love more, I'm calling the police to stop the harassment. Surely in today's environment, there must be some regulation that would stop such people from making me feel uncomfortable. Aren't my human rights being violated?

Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15) For years I interpreted that to mean I could and should show my love by keeping Jesus' commands. In other words, I was focused on "keeping" rather than "loving." I should have noticed that such an interpretation, though consistent with popular religion, was contrary to the teaching of Jesus. He made it very clear that we cannot love until we have been loved. We cannot give what we don't have. We cannot tell what we don't know.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35)

The kind of love that was revealed in Jesus is of divine origin. It is galaxies beyond the kind of love humans can generate. He had no need to use people for His own acceptance or significance. He didn't need to be vindicated; there was nothing pressuring him to manipulate others to His view. He loved with nothing to gain personally -- nothing but the joy of seeing another person being built up and blessed. And He didn't have the need to make sure others knew how well He was doing at loving.

When we have been touched by the delight of God's love, we can't help but pass it on. In fact, it would be safe to say that if we are not sharing His love, we don't really have it. This love is God's nature. Some think that before creation, He was so thrilled with the love shared between the persons of the Godhead, He wanted to share it with others, and that's why He created a universe that could experience the same joy He had.

Whether that's the reason He created us or not, we know God wants to share His love. And if God meant to share it, wouldn't those loved by Him do the same? Jesus demonstrated it in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. He fixed it so that humans could know God as Father, and in that relationship be fully satisfied. They would have no need to prove themselves. They would have no fear of want. They would not need to put others down in order to rise. They would be able to risk loving because they are safe in his care. In short, they could love -- and love doing it.

Trying to love like Jesus does, without being loved by Him, is like trying to breathe without air. It's much more taxing than living by religious standards of behavior. We could technically keep the outward commands of Jesus behaviorally without loving Him, but we cannot accept His love without responding in obedience to His words.

His love didn't just open the door to heaven when we die. It opened the door to share His life now. We get to be partners with Him, as He loves the world He created. We get to be free from our own agendas because we are captured by His. He is meeting all our needs so that we don't demand others to serve us. Living in His love releases us from the anchor of self-obsession and empowers us to be the display of His love.

If love seems hard to you, check to see whether you are focused on keeping His commands or on loving the one who loves you so much. Loving precedes keeping -- and you will love it.

Good Parenting

March 30, 2016 by Sandra McCollom

Wow, I love to write. I think I could write all day long and not get bored, especially if it meant helping someone. Although I don’t have time to write all day long these days, I get excited when God puts something on my heart to write and post for your encouragement and then the Holy Spirit helps me put it into words. I hope this post on good parenting helps you. Of course, all the glory goes to God…always!

Good parenting takes time…lots and lots of time. This is one big reason us McCollom’s don’t plan such a tight schedule that we end up running from thing to thing to thing. We learned years ago that to be able to listen to our kids and to be able to train them according to the Word of God this would take many, many, many, many conversations over the years; therefore, we purposely leave time in our schedule for these conversations.

Of course, just like everyone else, I have over scheduled our lives before. (I say I instead of we because Steve really doesn’t fall into this trap) But every time I do over schedule, I find that those parent/child conversations that are suppose to be positive and bring a positive outcome become more of a frustration. When that happens our kids can begin to feel like they are a frustration to us and that is definitely not God’s plan for parenting!

I just had a conversation with my girls this morning that was not in my plan, but the extra time was in my schedule helping me be able to calmly listen and talk through what we needed to talk through. And most importantly, having that time and not being in a hurry helped me remember to stop and hear from the Holy Spirit before making any decisions or saying anything I would regret.

I believe this kind of parenting leaves our kids feeling loved.

Today I encourage you and remind myself with this:

Let’s leave lots of extra time in our daily schedules for good parenting! We’ll all be glad we did because good parenting is an investment we are making into our kids lives and we will reap the benefit of investing well!

Let’s pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us and then be willing to click the delete button on as many things as we need to in our schedules so good parenting doesn’t end up getting deleted!

Sandra McCollom

Seven Ways Religion Damages Hope

March 30, 2016 by Paul Ellis

You can learn a lot about hope from watching the movies. When I was a kid I saw The Neverending Story, and for some reason one scene has endured in my memory. It’s the scene where Atreyu is confronted by Gmork, the wolf-like servant of the Nothing. Atreyu asks Gmork why he is helping the […]

544. Why Jesus Taught Two Covenants (Part 1): The Law Tree

Our Breakthroughs Come By God’s Grace, But Grace Must Be Received

Freedom From Legalism

Your Sin Nature was Cut Out by Jesus

Your Struggle Is Not With People

Your Struggle Is Not With People

Your Battle Is Not With People

How to Cultivate Hope

542. Repeated Repentance vs. Forever Forgiveness

HELP! I Am Trying to Love

Good Parenting

Seven Ways Religion Damages Hope

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