Tag Archives: eternal life

A PERMANENT ANOINTING

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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 Judaisers 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.

A DIVINE PARTNERSHIP

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A DIVINE PARTNERSHIP

“At this the Jews there began to grumble about Him because He said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ They said, ‘Is this not Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He now say, ‘I came down from heaven?’ ‘

“‘Stop grumbling among yourselves,’ Jesus answered. ’No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: “They shall all be taught by God.” No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only He has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.'” John 6:41-47.

The plot thickens!

Jesus’ assertions were stirring up the same old antagonism that got the people of Nazareth going against Him. The people of Capernaum could also not get past what they believed to be His ancestry — Joseph and Mary, the village couple from Nazareth. Here was a man, a flesh-and-blood man who stood before them making outrageous claims about Himself which were either dangerously blasphemous or true, and they had to decide.

He held out the offer of eternal life and they had either to believe what He said or reject Him and His words. However, that was not enough. If He were nothing but a deranged man or a liar, they had to get rid of Him because people were taking Him seriously and following Him because of the miracles He was doing, and they had no answer for that.

It was a tough choice for these people to make. Were they to believe Him and risk the wrath of the religious leaders who had already made up their minds about Him, or were they to ignore His compelling works and words and reject Him as a phoney? What could they make of His claim, ‘I came down from heaven’? If this were true, then He would be saying that He already existed with God before His entry into the world as a human being. That would make Him God. Exactly! But how could a man be God?

Then He spoke of the Father as though He knew Him; as though He worked with Him in partnership and unity and as though He shared His power and authority. But that was exactly it, and they could not fathom how this could be!

Slowly but surely, Jesus was building a case for His identity as the Son of God. He had to demolish their misunderstanding and prejudice and get past their fixed ideas and expectations about the Messiah, and bring them to a willingness to watch and listen and weigh up the evidence.

This was not about inviting them to join a cause. This was about convincing them that He was the Son of God. Only on that basis would they believe in Him and give themselves unreservedly to Him, follow Him and receive from Him a new life which would catapult them into a kingdom and under an authority that would utterly transform their lives.

Jesus was intimating that He had a partnership with God, whom He called His Father, that was so close that they worked together in perfect unity. It was the Father who drew them to the Son and it was the Son who would give them resurrection life. According to their revered prophets, there would be a time when His people would be personally instructed by God. Was He telling them that the time was now; that He, Jesus, was actually God and that He was teaching them the truth from God?

As the one who was sent from God, He had seen the Father; implying not so much God’s visible image, for God is spirit, but seeing and understanding Him in the inner depths of His being because, according to John, He was with God from the beginning.

It is faith that opens the door to “sight”, not the other way around. If they took Jesus’ word seriously and put their trust in Him, they would have 20/20 vision in the realm of the unseen which would propel them beyond struggle and mere existence into life where they would experience ever-increasing wholeness in the realm of God’s perfection.

Have you believed that Jesus is the Son of God and received eternal life through Him?

Acknowledgement

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.

FAITH IS THE KEY

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FAITH IS THE KEY

“‘I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish – the  very works that I am doing – testify that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has Himself testified concerning me. You have never heard His voice nor seen His form, nor does His word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one He sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.'” John 5:36-40 (NIV).

Jesus and the religious leaders stood on opposite sides of an impenetrable wall. The heart of Jesus yearned for them to see the light and recognize that He was speaking the truth when He declared that the works He did and the witness of the Father pointed to one thing – that He was the Son of God. Their desperate efforts to protect their power and influence over the people and their prejudice against Him because they hated His love for all people, blinded their eyes to His identity.

Again and again, they demanded, ‘Who are you?’ but then rejected the evidence before their eyes because they stubbornly refused to believe His word. In the end, it was not about their inability to understand. It was about their refusal to believe because they had another agenda. Had God or an angel personally come to explain the truth to them, they would still have refused to believe.

These men were professional students of the Word. They had memorised and studied the entire Old Testament from childhood and could flawlessly recite any part of it. Tanach was in their heads but not in their hearts because their understanding and interpretation of the Word was fixed by their “yoke”, their way of interpreting and applying the Word. They followed the yoke of their rabbis, Shammai and Hillel, and the ancient rabbis who went before them, the men who determined how the Scriptures were to be understood.

Although the common people recognized the overriding authority of Jesus, the religious leaders did not, and despised them for following and listening to Him. Not even the testimony of the highly revered prophet, John, could convince them that Jesus was the Messiah. They were in bed with the Romans and enjoyed their protection as long as they kept the people under their thumbs. They did not want anyone to rock their boat, especially this “softie” who had the common people eating out of His hand.

The scribes and Pharisees’ study of the Scriptures was purely academic, to reinforce their power over the people, not because they were looking for the truth about the Messiah. The evidence was there before their eyes and available to anyone who had the will to believe, but for these men, the truth was safely hidden until they unlocked it with the key of faith.

It was out of these altercations with the religious leaders that some of the richest revelation of Jesus and His relationship with the Father came. His opponents might not have chosen to believe His word, but for those who do, we have the assurance and the witness that Jesus was no fake but truly the Son of God for, as Nicodemus testified, no one can do these things unless God is with him.

How does Jesus’ testimony sit with us? It actually has more to do with choice than with fact. Like the Pharisees we can choose to reject His word, or we can choose to believe and then have the witness in our spirits that what He said and what He promised is true. The world says, “Seeing is believing,” but that is the way of the sceptic. The Bible says, “Believing is seeing,” and that is the way of the Father.

Faith must take the first step, based on the evidence, and the confirmation will follow. Faith puts into action what we know to be true, and God responds by fulfilling His word. We all fall into one of two categories, those who choose to believe or those who choose not to believe, and the outcome depends on our choice.

Acknowledgement

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.

AFRAID OF WHAT?

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AFRAID OF WHAT?

“‘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. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him.

“‘Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.'” John 3:16-19 (NIV).

Strange that Jesus almost sounds as though He were a preacher preaching a sermon instead of the Son of God speaking about Himself — the simplest, most well-known and well-loved, yet profoundest words in the Bible!

These words are so simple that a child can understand them. “God loved the world so much that He gave His Son…”

Why did God give His Son? The world was in darkness. What is darkness? We’ve already spoken about John’s use of “darkness”. Adam’s choice to go it alone instead of submitting to God’s authority and doing life God’s way, brought the whole world into disrepair, messed up and falling apart. God had other plans for His creation, plans for everything, including people, to work together in perfect harmony with Him but instead, darkness…

The result was condemnation. God passed sentence on His creation; not just people but everything; the natural world and even the heavens come under the hammer — guilty, condemned and sentenced to death. We see the sad result everywhere.

However, God had a solution — Jesus. He sent His Son to fix everything that was broken. How did Jesus do that? He showed us what the Father is like and what a true son is like and then threw down the gauntlet to the devil, ‘Do your worst and I’ll take it. I’ll release my creation from the curse of their choice. Let’s see what darkness can do.’

Darkness did its worst but Jesus bounced back. There was no darkness in Him and darkness could not hold Him captive. The Prince of Darkness did his worst through the darkness in people but it was not strong enough to snuff out the Light. When Jesus walked out of the tomb, darkness was overcome and He could offer pardon and peace to anyone who comes to Him.

No condemnation! That’s what Paul said. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1 (NIV). They came to the Light, believed in the Light and shed their guilt, shame and fear — forever. God’s verdict is now, “Not guilty; cased dismissed.” Every case the devil brings to Him for judgment is thrown out of court. There is no case because the debt has already been paid.

But there is a peculiar twist to the tale — there are people who actually refuse to accept the verdict — not guilty — and prefer to carry on with the trial and accept a guilty verdict and the sentence that goes with it. Why? How can they be so perverse?

There is only one reason. They love their filthy, twisted, selfish, perverse lives so much that they would rather go to jail than come clean and be set free. It’s okay to enjoy your sin while you can and get away with it but you have to live with the consequences afterwards. That’s one of the problems. People deliberately ignore the “afterwards” bit.

Come on now, let’s be real. What keeps people in darkness? “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” John 3:20 (NIV). There it is! The oldest reason in the Book. Adam hid from God because he was afraid. People hide from God because they are afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid of being found out. And when they are found out, they will be punished, so they think.

But wait a minute. Didn’t we say that Jesus has already been punished? No condemnation? So, what’s the problem? They either don’t know or they don’t believe. “God so loved the world…” a love so big and so unfathomable that it sounds too good to be true. But it is true.

Listen to this one: “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love.”1 John 4:18 (NLT).

But there is also hope. “‘But whoever lives by the truth comes to the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.'” John 3:21, 22 (NIV). 

Acknowledgement

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.

FAITHFUL AND FAIR

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FAITHFUL AND FAIR

“God will repay each person according to what he has done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, He will give eternal life. But for those who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honour and peace for everyone who does good; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favouritism.” Romans 2:6-11.

Isn’t it amazing? God is so fair that He allows us to choose the outcome of our lives! But, unlike the devil, He tells us all the options and doesn’t hide the small print. He lays it all out for us and then allows us to make an informed choice.

So why do so many people ignore His warnings, reject His offer of a new start on the right way, and end up where they didn’t want to go? There are some very powerful forces at work to keep us from believing God and being the beneficiaries of His mercy and grace.

The first is the same deception that led the first pair to defy God. Satan suggested that God is unreliable and unfair. He sowed doubt into their minds about His integrity. According to the devil, God either did not say what He meant or He did not mean what He said. In spite of all the warnings in Scripture, many people still refuse to believe that God means what He says. In their foolishness, they brush Him aside with the age-old argument, “It won’t happen to me.”

Long ago, God said through Asaph, the psalmist, “You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you…When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you.” Psalm 50:17; 21. People are still like that today. They think that, because nothing bad has happened to them, God either does not see or does not care about what they are doing. But they have forgotten that there is a day of reckoning coming.

The second force at work to keep us from God’s grace is the evil nature within us. Not only do we not believe Him; we don’t want to believe Him because we enjoy our sin too much. Satan does not have to do much deceiving and much persuading because we are willing allies to his deception. It suits us to believe him because we have no inclination towards God and His ways.

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear their deeds will be exposed.” John 3:19, 20.

However, in contrast to the dark side, there is a bright side. Paul said that there is a reward coming for those who persevere in doing good. Perseverance is the key. In the same way as punishment doesn’t come immediately, so rewards are being kept for the day when Jesus returns. It would be easy to lose heart and give up if we were not convinced that God is faithful and fair. We can count on the fact that He means exactly what He says.

“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.” 1 Corinthians 15:58.

This is what the Bible calls “the fear of the Lord”. To fear God is to revere and honour Him, and to act on what He has said because He is utterly faithful; firm and immovable on what He has spoken. We can depend on His reliability because He can never contradict Himself.

It costs discipline and stickablilty to keep on doing the right thing, like the salmon swimming against the current to get to their spawning ground. Like them, we have a reward coming at the end of the journey and it is worth the trouble to keep the end in view. Those who live for the moment have their reward – the momentary “pleasure” which will turn around and bite them in the end. Those who live for the end result, glory, honour and peace, will have to wait for it, but the outcome will be forever and is fully assured.

Acknowledgement

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