Tag Archives: in Him

The Measure Of Truth

Bible Study, , ,

THE MEASURE OF TRUTH

We know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commands. Whoever says, ‘I know Him,’ but does not keep His commands is a liar and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys His word, love for God is truly made complete in him. This is how we know that we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did. (1 John 2: 3-6)

What a difference between the standards of God’s Word and the standards that are applied in many parts of the church today! In some denominations, doctrine has become the standard of acceptance. As long as its members adhere to the right doctrines – or at least to the doctrines they believe in – everything else is acceptable.

One denomination I know of makes infant baptism the test. If any of its members dares to be baptised by immersion as a believer in obedience to Jesus’ command, he or she is immediately excommunicated because he has “undone his salvation”. Others make premillennialism the criterion. Its members must believe in a secret rapture, an evil antichrist political world ruler and seven years of tribulation before Jesus returns.

Sometimes the standards of the church are whittled down to what is socially or politically acceptable, regardless of what the Word of God says about it. The gay agenda is a case in point. God’s clear condemnation of homosexuality is smoothed over by fine-sounding arguments and rationalisation until it sounds as though we know the truth and God is at fault.

Now I ask, “Where did they find those requirements among the commands of Jesus?”

Peter had blown it badly. He was in the depths of despair because his beloved Master, whom he professed to love, was dead, and he had no opportunity to seek His forgiveness for his terrible words on the eve of His death. Jesus had warned him about a coming test but Peter had brushed it aside with a cock-sure denial of his weakness. “Even though everyone else forsakes you, I will never do it!”

Then it happened. Peter was caught off guard by a servant girl in the courtyard of the high priest’s house. He lied, and he could not take it back. Instead of owning up, he lied again, twice more and then the cock crowed. It was Jesus’ look that undid him. He remembered Jesus’ warning – too late, and that look of compassion cracked him up. He wept as he had never wept before – big, tough, blustering, motor-mouth Peter!

No, it was not that he did not believe in the right doctrines, or that he failed to carry out the right rituals. He lied about his association with Jesus.

But there was a sequel to Peter’s failure. Jesus was back among them, alive, as He said He would do. He found His disciples in Galilee, back fishing. He prepared a delicious fish barbeque for them and invited them to join Him. After breakfast, when their hunger was satisfied, He turned to Peter with an unexpected question. “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

Not, “Why did you do it?” or “Do you promise never to do that again?” but a simple, “Do you me?” Jesus said nothing about Peter’s failure. Not a word of accusation. Not a whisper of reproach. Just “Do you love me?” Three times, “Do you love me?” Peter must have had to think very deeply about his response. Did he really love Jesus? Why did He ask him that question? Any other question would have been easier to answer.

But, you see, that’s the difference between belonging to a club or organization and belonging to Jesus. We don’t keep the rules because we love the club. We keep the rules so that we are not thrown out. But belonging to Jesus is based on a different criterion.

If you love me, show it by doing what I have told you. (John 14:15 – The Message)

We have already talked about the essence of God’s nature. God is love. Love is the energy that drives Him. Everything about Him is motivated by love. It stands to reason, then, that love is the glue that binds Him to us and, therefore, should bind us to Him.

Our love for Jesus is the power behind everything we do, or should be. If we find it difficult to obey Him, we need to ask the question of ourselves that Jesus asked Peter: “Do I really love Him?” Love is the only force that will keep us in union with Him. When we are driven to obey by the fear of punishment, we are still slaves at heart. When we are motivated by love for Jesus, we are the true children of God.

Not our belief systems or adherence to our church’s requirements, but our love for Jesus, demonstrated by our obedience to what He told us in His word, is the acid test. Our love for Him is expressed by the way we hate what He hates and care about what He cares about. It’s not about keeping rules or else . . . It’s about loving Jesus enough to uphold everything that is important to Him.

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 ?

 

 

 

IT’S ALL ABOUT HIM

Pastor's Desk,

Dear Family

One of those many weird, unanswerable ponder-ings in life for me, at any rate, is to attempt to fathom how we are able to be “in Christ” whilst at the same time, He is “in” us. The Bible says, for ex-ample, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” and also “Christ in you, the hope of glory”. The clos-est explanation I can get to satisfy my pragmatic mind, is to think about a thoroughly soaked sponge in water. The sponge is in the wa-ter and the water is in the sponge. Not that the God who created this water should ever be compared to anything remotely like a mere facet of His creation, but at least it helps me to understand a little more how something can be in something else and at the same time be the thing that something else is in. Confused properly now?

The important thing is that we are in Him, and he is in us! He is our life. He is our past, our present and our future. He is everything we need, and we are the fulfilment of His plan for our lives. Nothing more, nothing less. In Acts 17:28 the Apostle Paul quotes the Greek poet, Aratus, from the first line of his poem on astronomy, “Phaenomena”, which is dedicated to the god Zeus as follows “For in him we live and move and have our being”. Obviously Paul was referring to the God who made the world and not Zeus, but he uses this line to emphasize the incredi-ble relationship we have with Al-mighty God. We live, we move, we have our being – all in Him!

I encourage you never to lose sight of the inexplicable closeness of God. He in us, we in Him. Through good times, through bad times, in celebration, in temptation. He is there! Our promised “Emmanuel”, “God with us” is a truth that, as believers, we should hold dear and high. God is not far removed from our human exist-ence, only popping in occasionally to see how bad things have got be-fore He shuts up shop. Rather, He in us, and we in Him, all the time, forever. Thank you, Jesus!

Paul

 

 

The True Test

Bible Study, , , ,

THE TRUE TEST 

“Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing His work.

“Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.'” John 14:8-11 NIV.

More of Jesus’ unforgettable words uttered in response to a question!

Would the disciples ever forget these last hours with Jesus in the Upper Room? The Passover meal had been eaten, the ceremonies observed that had reminded them of the first Passover meal their forefathers had eaten in Egypt. It was eaten in haste while they were poised for flight from the wrath of Pharaoh when his own firstborn son lay dead at the hands of the angel of death.

Egypt lay in ruins, systematically destroyed as God hit the land and its people with plague after destructive plague. Pharaoh had stubbornly resisted God’s command until this! It was the last straw and he ordered the Israelites out of the land before their God did anything worse to them.

Now Jesus had introduced a new ceremony infused with a new meaning for His followers to observe from then on – a ceremony deeply rooted in the events of the Passover but symbolizing a deliverance far greater than the deliverance from slavery in Egypt. In the simple symbols of bread and wine they would never forget the death of God’s Passover Lamb who would lay down His life to set His people free from slavery to sin.

In the Passover lambs killed and eaten by each family, they were to recognize that they were protected from death by faith in the blood of a lamb. No animal blood could protect them, but there was a lamb, God’s Lamb who would be put to death in a few hours, the efficacy of whose shed blood would atone for the sins of all people for all time.

Jesus savoured the precious moments with His disciples before it was time to hand Himself over for the sacrifice. What would be the subject of His final words to them? There was nothing more meaningful for Him to talk about than the Father, and to prepare them for the greatest of all gifts they were to receive — the gift of the Holy Spirit who would come in His place as His representative to live within them.

First of all, though, He had to make sure that they knew that there was unity between Father, Son and Holy Spirit so intimate that the Holy Spirit who would come to indwell them would be to them exactly as He had been, and would say and do in them exactly the same as He had said and done. Just as Jesus had perfectly represented the Father, so the Holy Spirit would perfectly represent Him.

In response to Thomas and Philip’s questions, Jesus assured them that it was His intention to show them the way and to take them to the Father. They would easily recognize the Father because Jesus was an exact replica of the Father. In every way He perfectly resembled the Father; all they had to do was to listen to His words and look at His works and they would know the Father just as they had known Him.

Jesus could not have explained it more clearly. In future days, when He was no longer with them in person, they had a standard by which to measure the words and works of those who were claiming to be representatives of God and, of course, of their own activities in His name. True sons resemble their fathers. One only has to watch and listen to the son to know what his father is like.

Not the claims but the works are the true test.