Monthly Archives: November 2015

No Condemnation

Bible Study, , ,

NO CONDEMNATION

This is how we know we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence. If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us we have confidence before God and receive from Him anything we ask because we keep His commands and do what pleases Him. And this is His command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ and to love one another as He commanded us (1 John 3: 19-23).

Can you hear Jesus speaking again? Almost in the words of Jesus, John sweeps aside all our man-made prerequisites for confidence in God and gets to the heart of it just as Jesus testified about Himself. This time, he joined the root and the fruit in one sentence. There is no conflict between believing in Jesus and loving our brothers. The first is the root, the second the fruit of our faith in Him.

John knew about the conflict that goes on in our hearts at times. We have an enemy who delights to accuse. His name, Satan, means “accuser”. His purpose is to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of God. If he can cause us to mistrust the Father’s promises, he can inject any substitute for the truth and, in our confusion we will take his lies for the conviction of sin which we think comes from the Holy Spirit.

Feeling “bad” over something we have said or done is not an indication that the Holy Spirit is speaking to our spirits. On the contrary, it is never the Holy Spirit’s role to condemn. Paul stated categorically that:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).

Why? On what grounds can we be sure that we are no longer condemned?

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us (Rom. 8: 33-34).

We have a solid reason for believing that we have been fully accepted by the Father. Even if we have inadvertently sinned again, we have a permanent representative before God, our advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous. His blood guarantees our forgiveness and God’s favour towards us.

Why do we feel bad when we have sinned? We not only have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father, we also have an adversary, the accuser who accuses us night and day before the Father.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down (Rev. 12: 10).

Accusation is never the role of the Holy Spirit. His role is not to convince us of sin but to convince the unbelieving world of sin, not to condemn, but to point them to the Saviour. He convinces the believer of righteousness – pointing us to the finished work of Jesus. What must we do with the voice of accusation and condemnation that plagues us, even when we have not sinned? It is the devil who drags up our past and parades it before our conscience in the hopes that we will have constant doubts about the truthfulness of God.

John assures us that, when our hearts condemn us, that nagging voice of guilt and shame that refuses to be silenced, it is not the voice of God. God is greater than our hearts. It is not a voice to be believed. How do we silence it? Expose the identity of the speaker and the lies he is speaking. In this war against the evil one, we were not told to fight but to stand. Stand on the truth of God’s infallible word. What has He said? Is His word true? When we expose the devil’s lies, we have robbed him of his weapon and disempowered him to unsettle us.

Fear comes from believing his lies. But our confidence is in the truth of what God has promised. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. God’s word is greater than our hearts. When we choose to believe Him rather than the lies we are hearing, we have confidence that we are His children and we can trust Him to answer our prayers because our lives are based on what He wants of us, not on what the devil wants us to believe.

His word, not our feelings based on Satan’s lies, is to be the guiding light of our lives. Then we can have complete confidence in what He has said.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

 

 

 

 

Love Is Action

Bible Study, , , , ,

LOVE IS ACTION

Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth (1 John 3: 15-18).

As I read through John’s letter, I become aware that he is steeped in the teachings of Jesus.

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.’(Matt. 5: 21-22).

We know that these are the words of Jesus but what was He getting at? The act of murder begins far back in the mind of the perpetrator. John missed out all the in-between bits and went to the heart of the issue. Jesus taught His disciples that murder begins in the attitude of the murderer long before he commits the act.

There was something Jesus hated with a passion in the hearts of the Pharisees – contempt for another person. This is the heart of idolatry – “I am better than you.” Arrogance, according to 1 Sam. 15: 23 is idolatry.

For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.

When one person elevates himself above another, the despised person is in his way and becomes dispensable. Long before the actual act of murder, the “murderer” has done the deed in his heart.

Once again John is identifying the root which produces the fruit. God’s love cannot exist side by side with hatred in the same person. Any ill will towards another is the fruit of selfishness which is the root of a heart that has never been changed by the power of God.

What did John mean by laying down our lives for our brothers? Did he literally mean that we must die for one another? It could in the context of the vicious persecution that threatened the lives of the Christians in John’s day. Believers were the targets of both Roman and Jewish hatred. It would have been easy for believers to retaliate with hatred towards their persecutors.

But John makes the issue of loving our brothers far more basic. During the reign of Domitian, who was nicknamed “the beast”, only those who worshipped him and received a mark to identify them as worshippers were permitted to buy and sell at the local market. That left believers who refused to worship him and had, therefore not received his mark, destitute. “Laying down their lives” for their fellow believers was as simple as sharing their meagre supply of food or goods with them.

John was adamant that true love for God was measured, not in believing the right things but in doing the right things. How tragic that there are thousands of students in Bible schools and universities across the world who are diligently studying theology and filling their heads with knowledge about God in the abstract so that they, in turn can pass on that knowledge to congregants in thousands of churches around the world while the hungry are still hungry and the poor are still poor. I know because I was one of them! Not once in the three-and-a-half years that I was in Bible College, was I taught that my ministry was to meet the needs of others at my expense.

Of Josiah, king of Judah, God said, through the prophet Jeremiah,

‘He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?’ declares the Lord (Jer. 22: 16).

Paul wrote to the Roman church that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. If we are truly born of God, the love of God is in us, but it is up to us to express that love by giving it away to others in need. Hatred comes from the root of selfishness. Love is the fruit of a life that has been captivated by the love of God. The fruit displays the nature of the root.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

 

 

 

What Is The Acid Test?

Bible Study, ,

WHAT IS THE ACID TEST?

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death (1 John 3: 11-14).

Hey, John! Haven’t you got it wrong? I thought that to have eternal life means to believe in Jesus. Isn’t that what He said?

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

The whole world knows that verse! So how can you say that loving my brother and sister is the way to eternal life? Aren’t you mistaken?

Let’s look at it this way. It’s easy to answer an altar call or sign a decision card in a moment of emotion when the music is playing softly and the preacher’s words are persuasive. But what about tomorrow when you are faced with the same irritating people at the office or the same nagging wife at home. The same disobedient children live in your house. The same teenagers who hog the bathroom when you are already late for work, still show you no respect or consideration. How do you react to them now? Has anything changed?

Believing in Jesus is much more than a religious exercise or a decision made in an emotion- charged moment. It is a decision and a choice to accept by faith God’s offer of forgiveness for all your sin. That’s the first step. The second is to surrender the control of your life to the Holy Spirit who has pledged to take up residence in you and to put you back on the path of obedience to God’s way of living. The good news is that He also enables you to do what you could not do before.

It’s actually a two-way commitment. God only responds to your decision when He knows that you really mean it and are committed to seeing it through to the end of your days. It’s a life-changing transaction. His part is powerful and supernatural. He rescues you from the clutches of the devil and his influence and transfers you to the kingdom of God where He calls the shots. His rule is underpinned by love, not selfishness, which the Holy Spirit generates in your heart. He washed you clean of all the stains of your past and puts His own nature in you, a disposition of loving obedience and trust in Him.

How do we know that this transaction has actually taken place? How do you know what kind of fruit tree is growing in your garden? By its fruit. It’s as simple as that! Jesus that the fruit will identify the tree. How do you know that the confession of your lips is true? Has the change actually taken place in your life or are you the same person you were yesterday? Do you have the same reaction to those who annoy you as you did before you made your “decision” to follow Jesus?

Of course, that does not mean that you have suddenly become perfect. You still have your old sinful nature to contend with, but somehow things are different if Jesus has responded to your sincere faith in Him. There’s a stirring in your heart towards the person whom you disliked yesterday. You are beginning to see him through different eyes. You recognise that he has his own issues which make him difficult to get on with. You find that can let go of the things that irritated you about him before.

There are the beginnings of new fruit in your life. God’s nature is starting to grow in you. You find yourself strangely moved by other people’s suffering where you were once disinterested and indifferent. You open your heart and your purse to someone in need instead of turning your back and walking away. What’s going on?

It’s the life of Jesus in you, not just a religious experience but an actual change that has happened in your heart. God is becoming real to you, not just a name that you utter when you are exasperated or surprised. You cringe when others thoughtlessly call His name. The emptiness and restlessness in your heart have been inexplicably removed and replaced with a peace that makes no sense but is very real.

How do you know that you have eternal life? Not because you signed a card or went up to the front for prayer, but because a real transformation has happened to you. You know you have eternal life because love has begun to grow in your heart.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

 

 

A Clear Distinction

Bible Study, , ,

A CLEAR DISTINCTION

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love his brother or sister (1 John 3: 8b-10).

John makes a very powerful statement here: No one who is born of God will continue to sin because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning because he has been born of God. To what does this “seed” refer?

It’s amazing how many things begin with a seed. Take the natural world for example. God placed the blueprint of every plant and animal in its seed. There is a power pack of information inside every seed, from the biggest to the smallest and, given the right conditions, the seed will grow and become a replica of its parent.

God also has a “seed”. Jesus told a parable about a farmer who sowed seed in his field. In Luke’s version of the story, Jesus identified the seed as “the word of God.” Peter remembered and wrote in his letter:

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God (1 Pet. 1:23).

God’s Word has in it the DNA of everything that God is and, when it is sown into the heart of a human being, in the soil of faith and obedience, it grows and begins to reproduce the nature of God in the recipient. It is impossible for a seed to reproduce anything other than what its DNA contains. A bear, for instance, cannot reproduce lion cubs. In the same way, a person who has received the seed of God’s Word by faith cannot go on reproducing the fruit of Satan’s occupation in his life.

Being “born again” implies that he has begun a new life from a different Father. In this case, however, although he has a new nature, he still has the power to choose and he can choose to follow the old nature which is still in him. But the new nature in him, the nature of God draws him towards doing what is right according to the DNA of God which is in His Word.

John concludes that it is impossible for those who are born of God to continue to rebel against God by doing what is contrary to the nature of God as a way of life, just as it is impossible for a lion, for example, to eat plants and to hibernate in the winter like a bear. This way of life has not been written into its DNA.

This has huge implications for those who claim to be children of God and yet still live like the children of the devil. It isn’t what they say that reveals who their father is, but what they do. Of course, this does not mean that the devil gave them natural birth. Satan has no power to create. He only has the power to deceive. Every person born into the world carried the spiritual DNA of the evil one since Eve was deceived into believing Satan’s lie that he, not God is in charge. Adam was not deceived. He disobeyed God because he had received God’s instruction which he chose to ignore.

The first pair changed allegiance and took on a new nature – the nature of disobedience. Through the work of Jesus on the cross – His perfect obedience to the Father through His life and death – He undid the work of Satan. He revealed that He is Lord which the Father confirmed by exalting Him to the highest place and giving Him the title of Lord. He destroyed the devil’s work and gave those who believe in Him the right to be called children of God. God’s DNA was restored to those who believe in Him, enabling them by the power of His Spirit, to reflect God’s nature in the way they live.

There is a clear distinction, then, between the children of God and the children of the devil. Those who belong to God have the nature of God and do the works of God, not perfectly but purposefully because God’s Word is in them. What are the works of God? The way we treat other people – with love, mercy and generosity – shows those around us whose seed is in us.

Malachi describes this distinction in the beautiful words of his prophecy 400 years before Jesus came to earth.

Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honoured His name. ‘On the day when I act,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not (Mal. 3: 16-18).

God’s DNA is in us. Let us show the world who our Father is by the way we reflect Him in our lives.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

 

 

Whose Son Are You?

Bible Study, , ,

WHOSE SON ARE YOU?

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps in sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as He is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. (1 John 3: 4-8a)

Once again John has to address a subtle part of the false teaching circulating in the Roman Empire and undermining the pure gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Gnosticism was beginning to emerge at that time. One of the basic beliefs of Gnosticism was that there is a distinction between matter and spirit. Matter is evil in and of itself while the spirit is good. The material part of the human being, the body is, therefore, sinful and cannot be redeemed. .

Greek philosophers parted company at this point. Stoics taught that the way to deal with the sinful body is to punish it as much as possible. Epicureans taught that it was okay to indulge the body in all the sinful pleasures possible because it could not be redeemed anyway. These two opposing ideas, of course, threw doubt on the nature of the Son of God. If matter is sinful and the spirit is good, then Jesus could not possibly have been a true human being. His body was an illusion, not a real body.

John put the brakes on both of these false ideas. If the body is sinful and cannot be redeemed, then Jesus’ death on the cross was not a real death. Jesus could not have redeemed us from sin, firstly because nothing can redeem the body and secondly because His death was only an illusion. If the spirit is essentially good, there was no need for Jesus to die because the spirit does not need saving.

But, John pointed out by implication, human beings are not split up into separate compartments, matter and spirit. People sin, not bodies, and sin affects people, not some parts of them. The real issue is; not which part of us is good and which part of us is evil but what do we do with God’s commandments? Do we obey them or do we not obey them?

But Jesus Christ was a real person. He came to earth as a human baby born of a human mother. He came in the flesh to deal with sin by dying a real death in the place of the sinner. He came to do away with sin so that those who believe in Him can be free to do what is right. This involves both body and spirit as whole people.

How do we know who are the children of God are and who the children of the devil are? Look at their lives. Those who do the right thing – those who obey God’s Word – are the ones who have been born of God. What does that mean? They have been made alive by the Holy Spirit, they have God’s nature (2 Pet. 1:4) and they resemble God because they do what He tells them to do. “Children of the devil” does not mean, as some erroneously teach, that they have literally been born of the devil. Satan cannot create. Only God can and has created human beings. Every baby born is a unique creation of God (Psa. 139: 13) and is, in that sense, His son or daughter.

“Children of” refers to the one whom they resemble in their lifestyle and actions. Jesus accused the Pharisees of resembling the devil in spite of their claim to be the children of Abraham because they were planning to kill Him. Abraham was no murderer, but the devil certainly is (John 8:44).

John takes up this thought here. Sinful lives are the great dividing line. Those who keep on sinning reveal their true nature. They are still under the devil’s influence. Those who claim to be the children of God but keep on sinning negate their claim by the way they live. “Sin” here is much more than doing really bad things – in our estimation – like lying, stealing or committing murder or adultery. It includes attitudes, moods, motives, refusing to forgive, harbouring bitterness and hatred and all the other hidden sins of the heart.

Sin, from God’s perspective, is everything that does not measure up to His perfection and His holiness. For those who are “in Christ,” sin has been dealt with and removed, and we have received God’s gift of Christ’s perfect righteousness by faith. Our part is to live up to who we are – to confirm our righteous standing before God by obeying His Word. As impossible as this is for us to do on our own, the Holy Spirit in us gives us the power to follow through on our decisions and choices to be God’s obedient children.

This is the acid test, not what we say but what we do.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?