law – Page 14

“The Real You” series – Week 8: You Are Blessed!

November 1, 2018 by Sandra

What do you believe you have to do to qualify yourself for God’s blessings? Tithe? Give offerings? Give both tithes and offerings? Mine and my husband’s lives have been pretty radically changed within this past year after learning the truth that we are blessed because of Jesus alone! I had to personally come to terms […]

672. The Spirit of the Living God (Not the Spirit of the Law)

October 7, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Legalists from the Christian religion who promote and teach a combination of the Old and New Covenant will use ambiguous language which is often misleading and leaves the hearers in the state of confusion. The double talk tries to convince people they need to do something in order to become more like God, become more righteous, more holy, more sanctified and the list goes on. It begins to take the spotlight off of the finished work of Jesus Christ and put the focus on us as we try to maintain forgiveness and fellowship with God by following some sort of “Judeo Christian” mixture based upon a sandy foundation of law and grace. As believers begin hearing “Moses” out of context, they become blinded to a greater knowledge of the truth, while missing out on many blessings God has already provided. One example is where they use the fabricated phrase “the spirit of the law” when the Scripture clearly defines the passage as the Spirit of the living God.

671. Theological Gibberish: “The Spirit of the Law”

September 30, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

When mixed covenant teaching attempts to suggest Christians should follow the Mosaic Law from the Old Covenant, a concept or phrase has been known to be used to build their case as they refer to “the spirit of the law.” They will complicate the simple gospel by convincing people of the differences between what they call the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. As is typically the case, people will be begin to believe the phrase actually appears in Scripture (it doesn’t). Bible “verses” get used out of context from various passages and the message of the good news becomes confusing as the waters get muddied with misleading theories which lack clarity, while leading people into a type of spiritual bondage. If you find yourself traveling on the road of lifeless religion, watch for the warning signs: “Dead End Ahead.”

EXTRAS: On this week's podcast we mentioned Kap's 'preaching' at Heartland Vineyard Church. Here is his 40 minute message on YouTube.

We also mentioned Ralph Harris and his new book "Life According to Perfect," as well as Joel's past interviews of Ralph. Check out the book here, as well as Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview.

670. The Letter of the Law Vs. the Spirit of Life

September 23, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

When believers fall into the trap of getting focused on improving behavior, it often leads them back into a place of bondage rather than the freedom Jesus came to give us. Your behavior will never reach the perfect standard God required under the law of commandments given to Israel. Trying to follow those rules and statutes only caused sin to increase. The letter of the law killed, but we now live in a New Covenant of the Spirit, which gives life. The power of grace found within the Spirit of God who lives in us is a very different ministry than what Israel went through under a system of works which did not lead to righteousness within their hearts. On this week’s program, our encouragement is to abandon the attempt to mix Old Covenant commands with New Covenant grace … because in spite of what the religious world has been teaching, they are not compatible.

669. Paul’s Testimony: I Stopped Trying to Keep the Law of Commandments

September 16, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

The title of this week’s program is an obvious paraphrase, but it isn’t far off from what Paul explained when it came to being freed and delivered from the Mosaic Law with its burdensome commandments. He found out that what he thought would give life had actually proven to bring death and despair, while causing sin to increase. Today many believers will get up in front of the church and talk about how they used to do bad things and now they work on doing good things. To be clear, pursuing sin will never be a profitable venture - less sin is a good thing. But this was not Paul’s testimony. He didn’t boast about how he used to murder and then stopped after he was saved. He emphasized that we’ve been made a new creation, and the value of getting to know Jesus and the power of His resurrection. God’s life in us, has caused us to pass from death into life in a New Covenant that isn’t based upon our ability to a meet certain standard of rules and regulations. Instead, we live by the righteousness of faith with the power of Jesus Christ abiding in us.

667. Why We Have No Relationship to the Law Which Came Through Moses

September 2, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

The Christian Church World has been duped into thinking the Law which was ushered in through Moses to the Jewish people under the Old Covenant was also meant for us to live under today (at least some of it). It is one of the greatest misunderstandings about God’s written Word, and it has kept many believers in a type of spiritual bondage that Jesus came to deliver people from experiencing. The inability to grasp this is because so many have made the assumption that certain commands and statutes from that first covenant were carried over into the New Covenant of Jesus Christ. Mixing portions of the 613 laws within the Law goes against the very Law itself. God declared nothing shall be taken away from the Law and nothing shall be added to it. But that is exactly what the church world has done. Either it had to completely come to an end and be replaced with something better or it ALL needs to remain intact. God redeemed Israel from that Law and provided all of us with a better Way.

Satan Has Been Disarmed and Humiliated

July 4, 2018 by Sandra

I went to my doctor yesterday for several bouts of sudden blurred vision within the past 7 weeks. I don’t know what’s going on, but there is one thing I do know – the devil has zero authority in my life. As a result of believing this truth and meditating on it often, when my […]

The post Satan Has Been Disarmed and Humiliated appeared first on Sandra McCollom.

658. The Golden Rule: A Spiritual Death Sentence

July 1, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). The religious world refers to this as the golden rule. Yep, the gold standard by which all other rules should be compared. With one sentence, Jesus summarized the impossible standard of the entire law with its hundreds of commandments. It was the ministry of spiritual death. It was meant to bring hopelessness and despair. The good news is that Jesus Christ united us together in His death, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. Sin no longer has dominion over us in Christ… not because we’re able to keep rules perfectly or try to behave better, but because we have already died to sin through the death of Jesus. Now we’re led by the ministry of the Spirit of God under a New Covenant, where we are not under the law. It’s the ministry of life.

657. When Church Teaching Misses the Gospel Target

June 24, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

We are not against the church. But it’s unfortunate that much of what has been heard and taught through various denominations and organizations has led people down the wrong path. Sometimes they are taught a mixture of law and grace which will lead to more sinning and more guilt instead of less. We have heard from people around the world through our podcast ministry, and in some cases they needed to seek professional counseling for various kinds of depression and fear which resulted in having medication prescribed to treat their condition… and it was related to their church experiences or Bible teaching that brought them to this place. The gospel is meant to bring a blessed assurance, and God’s unconditional love and grace has been given to us in abundance to bring peace of mind and to equip us for every good work. Our intention at Growing in Grace is to teach and remind people of how God has freely given us all things that are good.

645. Summarizing the Scripture (Part 16): Contradictions or Different Covenants?

April 1, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Why did Jesus sometimes tell Jewish people to keep the commandments and obey the law? How do we reconcile that with writings from the Apostle Paul and others who revealed in Scripture that all people have been freed from that very same law? The contrast is clear, yet it is seldom addressed head-on by Church Incorporated. Religious tradition has adopted most of what Jesus taught as a new Christian teaching, when instead He was frequently ministering the law to people from Israel who were under that law. Gentiles were never under the law of commandments which came through Moses, and in fact, we find in New Testament writings where they (we) were never to be considered under that former ministry. Jesus delivered people from it, and brought them into a New Covenant (Himself), to live within a new life by the ministry of God’s Spirit.

642. Summarizing the Scripture (Part 13): The Law, the Prophets & the Psalms Are Fulfilled

March 11, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” Paul wasn’t referring to the four books known as the gospels, but the passages from the law which came through Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. The Old Testament is filled with many hundreds of references to Jesus Christ, subtly pointing the Jewish people to a coming Messiah who would provide an eternal deliverance for the world. Jesus revealed to His disciples what all of the old Scriptures meant, as they referenced Him and His mission.

Luke 24:44: “Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’”

Jesus Christ fulfilled the Scriptures, including the law, on our behalf.

641. Summarizing the Scripture (Part 12): The Psalms: They’re More About Jesus

March 4, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

It can change the way we see everything. Reading Old Testament passages from a New Covenant perspective, through the eyes of grace. There were those who recognized Jesus as the Messiah because of what they knew to look for in the Mosaic law, the Psalms, and the Prophets. After Jesus was resurrected, He opened the minds of the disciples to understand the (Old Testament) Scriptures, by revealing what they said about Him. “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). Christians often see verses out of context when they are seeking a special Word from God within the Psalms for application in their personal life situation. While this can certainly occur, in reality, quite often it may be written from the perspective of someone who was trapped under the curse of the law, or looking forward to something better (Christ). We don’t live under that heavy requirement of those commands, but now abide in Christ. Instead of relying on some of these passages to figure out where we are supposed to go, we can look back and begin to see them as a road map that brought us to where we already are… in Jesus. That’s where we find wisdom, peace and comfort - while being led by the Spirit.