Tag Archives: children of God

JESUS DID NOT SAY THAT WE MUST BE PEACE-KEEPERS

July 4, 2022Apologeticschildren of God, peacemakers, persecuted because of righteousnessLuella Campbell

JESUS DID NOT SAY THAT WE MUST BE PEACE-KEEPERS

There is a huge difference between being peacemakers and peace keepers. What did Jesus say?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matt. 5: 9-12)

This chiasm has been arranged a little differently. The central thought has been put first.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.

Once again, to understand this chiasm, we must go back to its use in Scripture. There are only two places in the New Testament where the term, “making peace” is used, apart from here.

For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and though Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross. (Col. 1: 19-20).

Through His shed blood, Jesus reconciled to God everything in the universe that was alienated from God through Adam’s disobedience.

Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth . . . were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in His flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility. (Eph. 2: 11-16)

Wow! Can you see how deep the roots of peace-making go? There can never be peace between God and man and between man and man outside of the sacrifice Jesus made to reconcile us to the Father by doing away with the reason for the hostility. Sin alienated us from God, an impenetrable barrier that we could not nothing about.

There was only one solution – a perfect sacrifice made by a perfect son. God demands death as the penalty for sin, but every sinner must pay for his own sin. Only a sinless human could pay the debt for all sin, and Jesus was that sinless human.

Reconciliation, then, is not about bringing warring parties together. Reconciliation is about dealing with the cause of the war. God did that through His Son, so that there is no more reason for people to be alienated from God or from one another. The roots of the hatred between the races lie in the problem of alienation between God and man because of sin. Racial hatred will never be removed apart from the cross. It cost Jesus His own blood to do away with the hostility and make peace between God and man and between man and man.

Where does persecution fit into the picture? Human beings are not neutral in their attitude towards God. Because of our natural bent towards rebellion, we are at enmity with God. There is deep-rooted hatred of God and anything that has to do with Him. Why was Jesus crucified? Because of man’s hatred for God!

Those who represented self-help religion in Jesus’ day, the leaders of His people, the religious leaders, rejected Him because He showed them what God the Father is really like, and they hated Him for it. How accurately He diagnosed the problem:

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. (John 3: 19)

The way people view sin divides the whole world into two camps – those who hate their sin and those who hate God because of their sin. Those who hate their sin readily respond the Jesus and embrace His solution. Those who love their sin are against God and against those who are with Him. The outcome is persecution. The sinner can’t do anything to God, so he attacks God’s people.

Jesus did not say that persecution is enjoyable. He did say that persecution is a reason to rejoice because it is a sign that we are in the good company of those who hate God, persecuted the prophets, and killed Jesus. We must not be surprised that we come in for persecution as well.

So, what’s the bottom line?

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you, on God’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Cor. 5: 17-20)

Only when people have been reconciled to God can they be reconciled to one another and become a part of those who broker peace between God and man, and man and man.

IT IS FOR REAL

April 3, 2022Bible Studychildren of God, lavished on us, what great loveLuella Campbell

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, John 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 God 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.

However, 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 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)

Keep Yourselves From Idols

December 5, 2015Bible Studychildren of God, eternal life, keep yourselves from idols, under the evil oneLuella Campbell

KEEP YOURSELVES FROM IDOLS

We know that we are children of God and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true by being in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Dear children, keep yourselves from idols (1 John 5: 19-21).

John lived in a world full of idols. Both Greek and Roman religion centred in the worship of idols which the people practised through sensual and sexual “pleasures”.

Jesus had taught His disciples that there were two kingdoms, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. Everyone is born into the kingdom of Satan and is under his influence. God supernaturally transfers those who recognise Jesus as the Son of God and give allegiance to Him as Lord from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of light.

God’s kingdom is both among us and within us. Jesus came to restore God’s rule in the earth. He made this possible by paying sin’s debt and removing the barrier which separated us from God. The Holy Spirit brings us back to life so that we can have fellowship with the Father and the Son. The devil no longer has the power to deceive us. He is not Lord; Jesus is, and we have given our allegiance to Him and acknowledge His authority over us.

The Holy Spirit gives us the power to live new lives, and to follow Jesus as our Master. He teaches us to obey God’s Word and to walk in the light of His truth. He has reunited us with Jesus in a union so close that Jesus called it being “in Him” and He “in us”. Just as a branch is connected to the vine and receives its nourishment from the vine, so we are connected to Him by faith and receive His life through the Holy Spirit in us.

Since we are citizens of God’s kingdom and come under His authority, we have nothing to do with the beliefs and practices of Satan’s dominion. He claims worship from those who worship idols because, though idols are nothing, Satan uses images as a shopfront to get unsuspecting people to worship him.

Therefore, dear friends, flee from idolatry . . . the sacrifices or pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons (1 Cor. 10: 14; 20).

Christians can inadvertently worship idols in many different ways without offering sacrifices to pagan gods, or bowing down to idols. Perhaps one of the most subtle forms of idolatry is the god we have created in our imagination from our experience of our earthly fathers.

The Book of Hebrews contains a profound statement, the meaning of which we often miss:

And without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11: 6).

“. . . Must believe that He exists” has to ask the question, “Who is this who exists?” We must not look for the answer in our imagination, or from our experience of our human fathers but from the Bible. Who is the God to whom we pray? He is, first of all, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. If the Father to whom we pray is not identical to the Son who came to reveal the Father, we have created an idol in our imagination.

Unfortunately, many of God’s children have developed a distorted picture of God the Father, because their human fathers have represented a god who is harsh, abusive, uncaring or even absent.

John urged his readers to stay away from the pagan gods around them because these were the shopfront for demons. Whoever worshipped these evil creations became like them in character and behaviour. Believers were tempted to pay homage to them so that they could buy and sell in the market to survive. John said, “Don’t do it, even if you are forbidden access to the markets for food.”

Many of us in the western world are not tempted to worship idols, but what about the “things” to which we give allegiance by putting our trust in them, for example, our money, our assets, our investments, our income, our spouse, our families, even our church or our pastor. We give time to unimportant things which reveals what we value more than our fellowship with God.

We need John’s encouragement just as much as his readers in the first century. Keep yourselves from idols. There is not higher calling in life than to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves.

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 ?

Overcoming Faith

November 30, 2015Bible Studyborn of God, children of God, love for God, our faith, overcome the worldLuella Campbell

OVERCOMING FAITH

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves His child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out His commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith (1 John 5:1-4).

The teachings of Jesus filled John’s mind. One can feel his love for his Master pulsating through every word he wrote. He had taken Jesus’ instruction seriously about the Holy Spirit and His role in their lives. John had built his life on the foundation of Jesus’ words, and it was now his task to pass them on to his readers so that they would also have a solid base on which to build their lives.

I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world (John 16:33).

Jesus spoke these final words to His disciples before they left the upper room and made their way to Gethsemane. He had taught them about the Holy Spirit and His role in their lives after His return to the Father. He had assured them that He had overcome the world and that they would have victory over sin and Satan through their faith in Him.

What did John mean? This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Without the background of Jesus’ teaching, John’s encouragement would make no sense to his readers. He must have taken for granted that they knew what he was saying because he had already inspired them with Jesus’ words.

But what did Jesus mean by His words, “I have overcome the world”? Jesus’ world at that moment was the world of God’s people, the Jews among whom He lived. Their religious leaders, who tried slavishly to obey the teachings of Moses, demanded that they also keep their unreasonable requirements. His people’s “world” was the burdensome system of religion as well as the oppression of their Roman overlords. The Roman government taxed so heavily that many of them lived in poverty. Their fellow-Jews who served Rome as unscrupulous tax collectors, added to their burden, demanding more tax than Rome required to enrich themselves.

The world had overcome them. Instead of responding, like their countrymen Jesus’ disciples reacted to the oppressive world system in sinful ways; with resentment, anger, rebellion, hatred, bitterness, adding to their burden of guilt.

Jesus modelled the response that would not permit the world to overcome Him. He did not resist arrest. He submitted to the soldiers’ torture without threat or complaint. He accepted injustice without accusation. Peter’s summary accurately describes Jesus’ attitude to the “world” which rejected Him and treated Him unjustly and cruelly despite His innocence.

When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed (1 Pet. 2:22-24).

How did Jesus overcome the world? He absorbed in Himself everything evil that people levelled against Him. The worst that human cruelty and hatred did to Him could not move Him to retaliate. He forgave and prayed for His tormentors. He proved both to the powers of darkness and to the world of sinners that it was possible to live in obedience to the Father and without sin in spite of what the world did to Him.

In His life, He demanded of His enemies, “Who of you accuses me of sin?” to which no one could reply. In His death, He remained unaffected by those who hated Him. He steadfastly trusted in His Father’s love. His resurrection proved that He had no sin because death could not hold Him.

Jesus provided both a model for us under unjust suffering, and he also provides the power to overcome the sin of others against us. What was His secret? He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. By entrusting Himself to the Father, Jesus turned His attention away from His suffering to the one who sustained Him. The assurance of His Father’s love enabled Him to endure the cross.

Likewise for us who have given Jesus the right to reign over us, we are free to trust the Father to bring good out of the worst of circumstances. It is true that we will suffer in this life because human suffering is part of this fallen world, but God works for our good in all things for one reason – He is restoring in us the image of His Son.

Jesus loved the Father and trusted in His love to the extent that He submitted to the Father’s will and obeyed Him in everything. Submission and obedience are to be the hallmark of God’s children, based on confidence in His perfect love.