Monthly Archives: November 2015

It Is For Real

IT IS FOR REAL

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we could be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. All who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure. (1 John 3: 1-3)

Children of God! This was an important truth to John.

He had once been a part of the world, even though he was a Jew, thinking like the world and behaving like the people of the world system. He knew what it was like to hate, to live by retaliation and revenge. He knew the ravages of guilt and shame, fear and anxiety. He knew the pain of broken relationships, the bitterness of resentment and unforgiveness. He knew the havoc his conscience caused when he refused to acknowledge his sin and tried to pretend that it didn’t happen. John knew what it felt like to be an orphan – estranged from God and afraid of Him.

Then Jesus came and his world was turned upside down. He was introduced to the Father he had never known, the Father who loved him as much as He loved His Son. He was invited follow a man who was different from any other man he had even known. This man was gentle, kind, forgiving and full of mercy. In the face of bitter hatred He remained unfazed, never seeking revenge, never retaliating in anger. He was powerful too. He healed the sick, cast out demons and even raised the dead. He never fought His enemies with emotion – He always spoke the truth and they hated Him for it.

One terrible night the religious authorities had Him arrested and before his disciples could figure out what was happening, He was strung up on a cross and died. He kept telling them it would happen, but they didn’t believe Him until it happened. Then an even more mind-boggling thing happened. Three days later He walked out of the tomb and they saw Him.

For forty days, He came and went, appearing and disappearing like a phantom and yet He was real. They touched Him; they heard Him; they spoke to Him. He even ate with them. Then one day He disappeared for good. They saw Him leave, but He gave them an instruction and a promise. “The Holy Spirit is coming. Wait for Him.”

On the Day of Pentecost, he was catapulted into a realm of living he had only heard about from the lips of Jesus. Power! They had power like they had never known. All the mysteries of their Master’s death and resurrection were cleared up. Their hearts and consciences were free. They felt clean inside. They were filled with joy. They preached His message with boldness and power.

Best of all, they were no longer orphans. The Father to whom Jesus had introduced them and whom He had revealed to them by His words and actions was their Father too. The Holy Spirit witnessed in their hearts that they were God’s children, born from above, with new hearts and changed attitudes. His love gushed through them like a perennial spring. Jesus’ word came alive in their hearts as they went about telling all around them the truth that He really was the Son of God.

How John delighted to assure his readers that they, too, really were God’s children! The very same love that He had for His perfect Son was now being poured out on them, His immature and imperfect children. God saw them as already perfect in Jesus. He accepted them and embraced them because of Jesus. He delighted to have fellowship with them. He guarded and protected them jealously, only allowing them to experience what was good for them, working in their hearts to teach them to think and act like His Son. Jesus was His blueprint. The Holy Spirit was to restore in them the same heart of a son that was in Jesus – loving submission and obedience to the Father to carry out the Father’s will.

But it didn’t stop there. God, through His Son, had done everything to restore His family to Himself, but they had to respond to His love. In simple terms, John urged them: “God has picked you up out of the mud and washed you clean. He has dressed you in the pure robe of Jesus’ righteousness which He earned at great cost. Now stay out of the mud!”

All He asks of you is to keep away from the things that defiled you. Don’t go back to your old ways. The realm you are now living in is the right way up. Jesus showed you how to live in it. He gave you His Spirit to guide and teach you and go give you the power to obey Him. The world and its standards and practices are not forever. They will all be destroyed when Jesus returns. Selfishness, greed, hatred, bitterness and anger will never be experienced in God’s kingdom where everything will be perfect once again.

You can’t take the mud with you. If you mess with worldly ways again, you will perish with them.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2: 15-17)

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 ?

 

Righteousness Revealed

RIGHTEOUSNESS REVEALED

And now, dear children, continue in Him, so that when He appears, we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of Him. (1 John 2: 28-29)

After the turbulence of John’s emotions as he warned his beloved readers of the pitfalls and dangers of his times, he returned to the quietness of resting in the Lord Jesus and His work for them.

By this time, John was an old man and probably one of the few remaining apostles, if not the last, most of the others having perished in the paranoia of persecution, both from fanatical Jews and the Roman government, zealous for Caesar and for their gods. In the ferment of false teaching, he taught the truth and warned of the danger of deviating from what his readers had learned from him and from their leaders about the simplicity of following Jesus.

Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and obedience to what He taught was the solid rock around which the waters of error and unbelief swirled. Man’s wisdom and philosophy sounded sophisticated and drew the attention of so-called intellectual thinkers, but it had no substance and was destined to perish with all the false gods and religions that ungodly man had spawned.

Against the backdrop of all the conflicting contributions of man stands the unshakeable truth of God. God is light. God is love. In perfect balance of holy love, God provided a solution to the dilemma of mankind’s alienation from Him through their wilful disobedience and rebellion. God’s love for the human race moved Him to send His own Son, in human flesh, to live as a perfect Son and die as a rebel sinner to bring us back to God. His love and His justice satisfied, He can invite His estranged children back into fellowship with Himself.

Is there another philosophy or religion in the world, arising from human imagination that can match the perfection of God’s involvement in human affairs to rescue humanity from its self-inflicted destruction? Not only did He do it through Jesus, but He did has powerful effects on those who believe in Him and respond to His invitation.

There is not another teaching in the history of humanity that can transform sinners into trusting and obedient children of God. The human story is littered with evidence of God’s power to change hearts and turn sinners around. But what produced the change? Not adherence to some fanciful philosophy or religious gobbledygook. The Holy Spirit alone can change hearts as men and women entrust themselves to the one who died for them and rose from the dead. He is our Mediator, seated in power and authority at the right hand of the Father.

John’s simple counsel to his readers is: Remain in Him. Just keep trusting Him. Don’t fall for the lies that complicate your simple trust in Jesus. Stay in His word and you will stay in the truth. Whatever anyone adds or takes away from who He is, what He said and what He did will draw you away from Him.

Our faith is founded, firstly, on the indestructible truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is fully God. He came from God and He returned to God. He is also fully man. He was born of the virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit but fully human. He lived in perfect obedience to His Father for thirty-three years. No one responded to His challenge to find Him guilty of sin.

In spite of Hi innocence, He was found guilty of blasphemy by the Jewish religious hierarchy and treason against Rome although Pilate declared Him innocent. He was crucified, died and was buried in a borrowed tomb. He rose from the dead on the third day because death could not hold Him. His death paid the debt which the Father demanded as the penalty fro sin, freeing the sinner of his debt and offering forgiveness to all who receive it by faith.

The spinoff of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the believer is the right of access to the Father again. Where sin once barred the way, the barrier has been removed and we are free to approach the Father without fear. Those who believe in Jesus have been reconciled to the Father and restored to His family with full rights as His sons and daughters.

“Now”, said John, “stay in the simple trust in Jesus that bought all these benefits to you. Don’t fall for the strange teachings being offered to you as the truth. Continue with Jesus and what you were taught from the beginning.” John was echoing Jesus’ words, “I am the vine; you are the branches.” What does a branch in the vine need to do to be fruitful? Nothing! It simply stays there, connected to the vine stock and receiving its nourishment from the vine.

What does a believer need to do to remain in Jesus? Nothing except trusting Him and living in the truth we received from Him. Only if we do that can we be secure in our faith and be fully confident in Him when He returns. The righteousness we need to be acceptable to the Father is a gift from Him. When our new nature responds by doing what is right, we can be sure that we are “in Him”.

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 Permanent Anointing

A PERMANENT ANOINTING

As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you will also remain in the Son and in the Father.  And this is what He promised – eternal life.

I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you, the anointing you have received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit – just as it has taught you, remain in Him. (1 John 2: 24-27)  

We must never think that the early church was in any way idyllic. Satan had his emissaries everywhere, just as he has today. False teachers abounded and false teaching was rife. The same spirit that hounded Jesus to death through Jewish prejudice was at work, undermining the truth of the gospel, especially among those who came out of paganism as well as new Jewish believers.

A group of false teachers called Judaizers went about undermining the work of the apostles by teaching Gentile believers that people converting from paganism to Christianity had to be initiated into Judaism first through circumcision. Paul responded to this error very vehemently in his letter to the Galatian church. He insisted that to go back to the law was to nullify the grace of God.

Another subtle teaching arose out of Greek philosophy, called Gnosticism – that there was a body of secret knowledge only accessible to a select group of people.

“Gnosticism was perhaps the most dangerous heresy that threatened the early church during the first three centuries. Influenced by such philosophers as Plato, Gnosticism is based on two false premises. First, it espouses a dualism regarding spirit and matter. Gnostics assert that matter is inherently evil and spirit is good. As a result of this presupposition, Gnostics believe anything done in the body, even the grossest sin, has no meaning because real life exists in the spirit realm only.

Second, Gnostics claim to possess an elevated knowledge, a “higher truth” known only to a certain few. Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis which means “to know.” Gnostics claim to possess a higher knowledge, not from the Bible but acquired on some mystical higher plain of existence. Gnostics see themselves as a privileged class elevated above everybody else by their higher, deeper knowledge of God . . .

“Gnosticism is based on a mystical, intuitive, subjective, inward, emotional approach to truth which is not new at all. It is very old, going back in some form to the Garden of Eden, where Satan questioned God and the words He spoke and convinced Adam and Eve to reject them and accept a lie. He does the same thing today as he “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He still calls God and the Bible into question and catches in his web those who are either naïve and scripturally uninformed or who are seeking some personal revelation to make them feel special, unique, and superior to others.”

http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-gnosticism.html (retrieved November 2015)

The “spirit” of these false teachings is still very much alive today. Legalism insists that we adhere to certain rules in order to find favour with God; rules like food taboos and Sabbath adherence, for example. To follow these teachings is to move from grace to law – and once again to fall under the penalty of the broken law. If Christ is not sufficient for our complete salvation, He is not sufficient at all.

The other subtle error is to believe the lie that there is a select group of believers – the so-called “born-again-and-Spirit-filled-and-tongues-speaking” group who have attained something that others lack. There is no such category taught in the Bible. People are either followers of Jesus or they are not followers of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is given in full measure to all who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord.

It is more important that we know the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ than that we understand all the ins and outs of these false teachings. John took his readers back to what they had heard from the beginning. By that, he meant that they were to stick to what they had been taught by those who were with Jesus from the beginning.

What was their source of knowledge? Jesus had promised His first followers that He would send the Holy Spirit from the Father and that, when He came, He would lead them into all truth. He would take the truth about Jesus and reveal it to them. Unlike certain people in the Old Testament era who only temporarily experienced the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, He would be poured out on “all flesh” – so said the prophet Joel – and for all time.

Believers could rely on the Holy Spirit to teach them because He remained in them. They in turn could be sure of the truth if they remained in Jesus – held to what He had taught and not followed the false teachers whose intention was to draw them away from their confidence in and allegiance to Jesus as their Lord.

Beware, dear readers, of those who insist that they alone know the truth and who gather followers after themselves. Exclusivity is a sure sign of error. Jesus called people to follow Him. Every teacher or preacher who connects people to Jesus and not to themselves is worthy of trust. In the long run, however, we can rely on the Holy Spirit, the anointing who is on us forever, to teach us the truth if we hold to Jesus’ teaching and not fall for the errors of those who insist that they alone are right.

Scripture 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 Reliable Anointing

A RELIABLE ANOINTING

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth but because you do know it and because He comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist – denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Father has the Son; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2: 20-23)

How much is packed into these few lines! Just by reading them, one can see that John has spent much time with Jesus.

Who or what was the “anointing”? Jesus spoke in detail about the Holy Spirit before His death. His own title – the Christ – was not His last name but it referred to His office as Messiah, the Anointed One. He promised His disciples that they would receive the same anointing He carried to do the work He did, the Holy Spirit who would come upon them and be in them after He had returned to the Father.

Jesus had and conveyed great confidence in the Holy Spirit to lead His fledgling disciples into the truth. At that point they had their Tanakh – their sacred writings which told the story of the origins of the world, the birth and call of their nation, its history and the writings of the prophets whom God raised up to call His people back to Himself and to interpret their history in the light of God’s dealings with them.

Their Scriptures had many fingerprints of the promised Messiah. From their understanding of the Old Testament, Jesus gave His appointed servants the apostles, through the Holy Spirit, the authority to interpret and apply His yoke as they invaded the Roman world with the good news of the kingdom of God.

John had heard the words of Jesus, over and over again as He explained His role as the Son of God, sent from the Father and in union with the Father. His words echoed the words of Jesus:

Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent Him. (John 5: 23b)

So close was the union between the Father and the Son that they worked together as a unit, Jesus on earth in the flesh as the perfect mirror image of the Father, carrying out His will even to death. To deny Jesus in any way, who He was, what He taught and what He did was to nullify any connection with God. Jesus insisted that there was only one way to the Father, the only true God, and that He was the way.

No matter who or what declares that there are many roads to God, Jesus claimed to be the only way. Either Jesus was a liar or those who make the claim are liars. They cannot both be telling the truth.

Whose word do we believe? The word of the proponents of their own religious beliefs or Jesus? What proof do we have that one is a liar and the other telling the truth? Is there any other person who ever lived who had the audacity to claim that he would be killed and then come back to life again? Jesus is the only man who ever did, and He pulled it off. And no one has ever been able to discredit the truth of the resurrection, not even the greatest of legal minds.

And, said John, since the Father and the Son are one, to discredit the one is to discredit the other. To deny the Son is to deny the Father. This is what antichrist is all about. Anyone who rejects anything Jesus taught about Himself and His relationship with the Father – His deity, His humanity, His anointing with the Holy Spirit, His death and resurrection, His union with the Father and His work as the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world, can be put into the category of “antichrist”. That includes any false religion which elevates its gods above Jesus, or any cult that undermines, alters or rejects the full revelation of Jesus given to us in the Bible.

This is not about a future anti-God political leader who claims the right to rule the world. This is about any mind-set or attitude in any person or group of people who elevate anybody or anything above Jesus.

Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2: 5b-11)

Scripture 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), 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 ?

 

 

 

 

 

Troubled And Transient

 

TROUBLED AND TRANSIENT

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2: 15-17)

The word “world” is used in different ways in the Bible. It is sometimes used of the geographical planet on which we live, sometimes of the people of the world and in this case, of the corrupt world system with its ungodly ways, pleasures and allurements to sin.

“When we are told not to love the world, the Bible is referring to the world’s corrupt value system. Satan is the god of this world, and he has his own value system contrary to God’s (2 Corinthians 4:4). First John 2:16 details exactly what Satan’s system promotes: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. Every sin imaginable can be summed up in those three evils; envy, adultery, pride, lying, selfishness, and more spring from those three roots . . .  

“In general, the term world in the Bible refers to the evil system controlled by Satan that leads us away from worship of God. John Calvin said, “The human heart is an idol factory.” We can make idols out of anything. Any passionate desire of our hearts that is not put there by God for His glory can become an idol (1 Corinthians 10:31). Loving the world is idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:714). So, while we are commanded to love the people of the world, we are to be wary of anything that competes with God for our highest affections.”

http://www.gotquestions.org/do-not-love-the-world.html (retrieved November, 2015)

There are several reasons why we should not “love the world”, that is follow the ways of the world rather than walk in the ways of God’s Word. The first is given to us in Hosea 9: 10.

When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree. But when they came to Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol and became as vile as the thing they loved.

God’s family held great promise until they showed their true colours when the opportunity came. They were lured into idolatry with the Midianites in the desert, disregarding God’s marriage covenant with them and worshipping false gods and doing the disgusting things associated with the worship of idols. They embraced the filthy ways of the idols they worshipped and became like them.

Secondly, we must not follow the ways of the world, because they are an insult to the God who bought us and made us His own. We are His sons and daughters, bought back from the slave market of sin at great cost. As His children, we are to reflect His nature to the world. God is holy love. He cannot have anything to do with what the world system represents. It is under the control of the god of this world. When we follow the ways of the world, we step back into the enemy’s camp and become enemies of God again.

Thirdly, the world and its ways are transient. God has reserved the devil and all who follow him for the Day of Judgment. He has appointed His Son, Jesus, as king on Zion, His holy mountain (Psa. 2:1-12). The nations were given to Him and He will sit in judgment over them and destroy everything that opposes God, including the devil and the world system he controls.

Then the end will come, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father after He has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Cor. 15: 24-25)

It is foolishness to invest one’s whole life in that which opposes God, makes one filthy and will pass away when Jesus comes to set up His kingdom on earth. As much as Satan would dearly love to be God and take the Father’s place on the throne of heaven, he has already been exposed and defeated by Jesus through the cross.

Evil and the evil world system based on selfishness and greed, will collapse and pass away. God alone is eternal. Whatever He has created that bears the stamp of His nature and that functions in harmony with His ways, will be indestructible when the judgment falls and the fire destroys everything that is combustible.

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what had been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved – even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Cor. 3: 11-15)  

At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, ‘Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ The words ‘once more’ indicate the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire.’ (Heb. 12: 26-29)

Scripture 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), 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 ?