Tag Archives: life

THESE WERE WRITTEN – 30

Bible Study, ,

John 20:30 – 31 NLT‬
[30] “The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. [31] But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.”

In no other gospel but John’s did the writer state so clearly the purpose of his book. One of John’s themes was “believe”, recording some of the miracles Jesus did that led people to believe in Him.

Jesus’ miracles were not primarily intended to produce faith. We know from Scripture that even God’s own people did not trust Him despite His miracles. The religious leaders in Jesus’ day rejected Him in the face of the overwhelming evidence of what He did. They repeadedly demanded signs to prove His claims but they refused to believe the many obvious signs to His deity.

So, what, then, was the purpose of His miracles? In John’s final words, he remarks that all the books in the world could not contain all the miracles Jesus did!

‭John 21:25 NLT‬
[25] “Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.”

Now that’s a very bold statement! John was probably attempting to convey the magnitude of the demonstration of His miracle power during the time of His earthly life. Why did He do miracles? He was certainly not trying to create a sensation or to win a popularity contest. Quite the opposite! He often tried to escape the attention of people who clamoured after Him for miracles.

However, if His miracles were not intended to produce faith, what was their purpose apart from helping suffering people in their distress or even overriding nature like storms and water? Miracles certainly demonstrated His compassion for people in distress but… there was no way He could heal everyone who was sick or disabled.

John points us in the right direction. The miracles Jesus did were evidence that He is who He claimed to be… the Messiah, the Son of God. You see, faith in Jesus because of miracles does not save us. Faith in Jesus because He is who He is, the Son of God, is the bedrock of our salvation.

Our faith in Jesus, unlike the attitude of many who try to use Him for their own ends, is a commitment to Jesus as our Lord, our supreme authority, who rules in every detail of our lives. We submit unconditionally to Him, believing in His right to rule over us because He made us and because He bought us with His own blood.

This perspective is what puts Jesus in His rightful place. Miracles fit into God’s greater purpose to recreate us in the image of Jesus. If He chooses to intervene miraculously in our circumstances, it is His will that
overrides our desires, always working for our good in all things, good or bad, to hone our unwavering confidence in Him.

Unfortunately, this truth that miracles are signs, not reasons for faith in Jesus, is what exposes so much deception behind the “healing campaign” ministry that attracts many unsuspecting people today. “Come and get your healing!” they proclaim, as though healing is the be-all and end-all of who Jesus is – a servant who waits on us when we need Him, and nothing more.

If Jesus’ miracles do not lead us to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then they have not served their purpose. Saving faith, producing new birth and miraculous transformation by the power of the Holy Spirit, comes through faith in Him and issues in what Jesus called “life”.

Life is, for God’s people, a new dimension. We have been transferred from “death” to “life”, from the death zone where Satan dominated and drove us to live by the dictates of our old sinful nature. Our sinful way of life proved that we were spiritually dead and under God’s judgment.

“But now…” we have life if we believe in Jesus. Our union with Him passes His life into us like branches in a vine, producing the fruit of that life, His own nature at work in us. This is a miracle but it is the fruit, not the root of faith.

So, let’s put Jesus’ miracles in their correct perspective. Miracles are the witness that Jesus is God’s Son, and we believe in Him, unconditionally, to be to us….

‭Hebrews 12:2b NLT‬
[2] “… the champion who initiates and perfects our faith….”

We believe in Him, not because of His miracles but because His miracles convince us that He is who He is, the Messiah, the Son of God.

‭1 John 5:11-12 NLT‬
[11] “And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. [12] Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.”

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – WHO YOU ARE, NOT WHAT YOU HAVE

Bible Study, ,

WHO YOU ARE, NOT WHAT YOU HAVE

“Speaking to the people (Jesus) went on, ‘Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even if you have a lot.'” Luke 12:15.

Jesus was well aware of the flaw in the fabric of human nature. He spoke about money and possessions more than any other subject. Why? He constantly warned against greed because of its consequences. Greed turns men into monsters, warps the mind and rips families and society apart. The Apostle Paul put it in a nutshell, ‘The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.’

To Jesus, greed was more wicked than adultery. He forgave the woman caught in adultery; He spent time and ate with tax-collectors and sinners, but He had serious issues with religious people who used their religion as a cloak for greed. He told stories to warn people about what God thought of greed.

Generosity was the clearest evidence of a change of heart. When a greedy person was willing to give and to share, that was ‘salvation.’ He did not mean that giving one’s money away saved anyone. That would have made it unnecessary for Him to go to the cross. He died to change the greedy heart into a disposition of generosity like the heart of God. So, when a greedy person turns generous, like Zaccheus, the miracle of salvation has occurred.

In the Bible, the word ‘righteous’ and the word ‘generous’ are interchangeable, for example, ‘The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously.’ Psalm 37:21 (NIV). Generosity with our money and possessions are the outward evidence of a generous disposition which is willing to be open-hearted with people in every other way. God’s character can be summed up by the word ‘generous’. Just look at the world around us. God does everything in excess – lavish, prodigal, super-abundant provision in every way. Only man has messed it up.

God is not only generous with His provision in the natural world. His generosity spills over into His dealings with us. He is generous in His love, His mercy and His grace even towards those who will have nothing to do with Him. He gives us life and He offers every opportunity to receive His forgiveness and become a part of His rule of righteousness (generosity) in His kingdom. As long as we have breath in us, He calls and woos us towards Himself.

How can we protect ourselves against the greed that destroys everything? The answer is simple. Firstly, by receiving God’s mercy, we are forgiven and given a new disposition of generosity to replace our self-centred greed. But we have to cultivate the attitude towards others that sees their need before our own. Jesus said, ‘Give!’ The more we give to others, the more we break the selfish attitude that puts ourselves before others.

Praying won’t change us. Giving will. The strange thing is that giving releases a joy that makes us want to give even more. Giving does not make us poorer; it enriches us in ways we would not have believed possible. That’s what Jesus meant when He said, ‘Blessed are…” True happiness comes when we do the right thing and the right thing is to meet someone else’s need at our own expense. An amazing thing happens. We create a current of attitudes and resources that flows right back to us!

Jesus also warned against defining ourselves by what we have and not by who we are. The danger is that we elevate ourselves and treat others by value, not worth. Our worth lies in the price God put on us, the blood of His own Son. What we own is transient, but what we are worth is eternal and all people of all time are worth the blood of Jesus because we have God’s breath is us.

The Power Of The Cross – We Have Life Through His Blood

Gospel, , , , ,

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

WE HAVE LIFE THROUGH HIS BLOOD

Never cross swords with Jesus! The Pharisees tried it and always came off second best. The amazing thing was, though, that every time Jesus engaged them in debate, He said something profound and unforgettable. Like the time they tackled Him about His declaration that He was the bread of life. Once again they demanded a sign. Refusing to recognise that He was their Messiah, they kept harping on the same thing: “Give us a sign. Give us a sign.”

Jesus insisted that He had given them sign after sign but it made no difference. They were not convinced and they demanded yet another sign. Moses gave them bread of heaven. That was a sign that he was a prophet from God. What would Jesus give them? He startled them by declaring that Moses’ manna was not the real bread from heaven. He was!

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. (John 6: 51)

That shook them. He must be joking! What did He mean? Was He advocating cannibalism? Of course not! Then He said something even more explicit.

Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day.’ (John 6: 53-54)

Jesus was a Hebrew. He thought and spoke like a Hebrew. He was not talking about literally eating His flesh but about what eating does. We eat food to nourish our bodies. Eating food keeps us alive. When we stop eating, we die.

Jesus spoke of His flesh and blood as nourishment, obviously not for our bodies but for our spirits. He was referring to His broken body and poured out blood given willingly as a sacrifice for sin for the whole world. To eat His flesh and drink His blood implied believing the truth of the meaning of His sacrifice. Faith in what He did for them would bring them back to life because they were dead in their sins.

Jesus was referring back to a statement in the Old Testament that explained why blood was so significant. Long before the discoveries of science and medicine, God made clear in His Word what we know to be true today. The life is in the blood.

“So says Leviticus 17:11. Everyone knows that we must have enough blood flowing around our body or else our bodily functions deteriorate and we die. Yet for a long time the exact function of blood was little understood. In what ways has modern science shown Leviticus 17:11 to be true?

Blood is fundamental to the function of every cell of every component in our bodies. Cells need food to survive, grow, repair themselves and to fulfill their specific functions, and, to reproduce. Cellular food is transported in blood to provide energy for all the cells’ needs. As humans are multicellular organisms, having separate specialized organs with highly sophisticated functions, transport and communication between these structures is essential.”

http://creation.com/life-is-in-the-blood (- retrieved October 2015)

We all know that, when the body is depleted of blood, the organs cease to function and the body dies. Without blood, there is no life.

Jesus used this analogy to explain that His blood, not flowing in His body but poured out through His broken flesh, provides life for the inner being when it is taken in by faith. Sin killed the spirit of the first pair and, since that moment, death came upon every one of their descendants because we have all sinned.

But Jesus declared the good news that His life, poured out on the cross by the shedding of His blood, has given us life, not just physical but eternal life.

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness, reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. (Rom. 5: 17)

And this life is given to us as a free gift! Just as we take in food to sustain our physical lives, so we take in by faith the blood of Jesus which gives us and sustains our eternal life. Jesus said to Martha:

‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ (John 11: 25)

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 ?

 

 

Case Concluded

Bible Study, , ,

CASE CONCLUDED

For, ‘In just a little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.’ And, ‘But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.’ But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved (Heb. 10: 37-39).

The writer concluded his magnificent case for the superiority of Jesus over all the people and systems of the Old Covenant with two quotes from Habakkuk:

‘He who is coming will come and will not delay.’ (Hab. 2: 3). And

‘But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.’ (Hab. 2: 4)

The first quote should read: For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.

What was the writer’s point? To understand, we need to back up to his whole concluding argument. Having proved without a doubt the superiority of Jesus’s high priesthood and sacrifice over the Levitical system, he issued a serious warning that, to go back the Judaism was to trash Jesus, His blood and the work of the Holy Spirit, to remove themselves from God’s grace and to put themselves under judgment because, outside of Christ, there is no forgiveness of sin.

For those who “shrink back”, judgment is coming, as surely as it was for the Israelites who shrank back from believing God’s promise and refused to enter the Promised Land. Judgment came to the people of Judah in the form of the Babylonian captivity as God prophesied through Habakkuk because the Jews failed to trust God by obeying Him and walking in His ways. Jesus is coming soon to bring judgment on those who shrink back from following Him because the price is too high.

The second quote was an encouragement to persevere in spite of the circumstances. Judgment would surely fall on those who went back, to dodge persecution but, for those who kept trusting God in spite of suffering, there was a rich reward. God’s pleasure rests on those who put their trust in Him and obey His word, regardless of the cost.

These readers had started off well by paying the price for their faith and suffering joyfully all the indignities heaped on them by both unbelieving Jews and the officials of the pagan government of Rome. The danger was that they were becoming weary of this way, and they were seeking an easier way to make life a little more comfortable, not realising the implications of drawing back.

Faith is only true faith when it perseveres through the difficulties which make faith legitimate. Faith has no value when it has no need to be exercised. God has no pleasure in “fair-weather” believers whose faith is radiant when there is no need to trust Him. The true value of faith lies in the confidence one has in the faithfulness of God when the wind blows and the storm rages and the world is utterly dark.

The entire message of the Bible is that there is limitless grace for those who return from their own way to follow God’s way. His mercy is extended to anyone who repents of sin and trusts in Him for His provision of forgiveness through the blood of His Son. But, on the other hand, there is no mercy for those who reject His offer of salvation and choose their way over His way. Why should He have mercy on those who trample the blood of Jesus underfoot? God paid the highest possible price for our salvation. There is nothing more He can do.

The writer concluded his warning with a word of encouragement. The history of his readers proved that they were once sincere believers and followers of Jesus, the Messiah. His reassurance and confidence was that they would not give it up but continue to press on in spite of their hardships, and would eventually receive the end result of their perseverance, the eternal salvation which no one could take from them.

Faith and perseverance – two non-negotiables on this journey into life. Shrink back, and you lose it all; persevere and you will receive your reward – a place in God’s forever family and everything He promised as your inheritance.

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 new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

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

 

All Because He Lives!

Bible Study, , , , ,

ALL BECAUSE HE LIVES!

“You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you.” Romans 8:9-11.

What if Jesus had not risen from the dead? Paul could write with confidence to these mostly unknown Roman believers because of one thing. Jesus rose from the dead and because of that, He sent His Spirit to live in those who believed in Him.

To be a baptised believer in the Roman Empire in his day was a perilous choice because every believer was in danger of facing death at the hands of a hostile Roman government. Christians were a distinct group. It was not possible to sit on the fence because no one in his right mind would risk death unless he were thoroughly convinced and committed to Jesus as Lord.

So Paul could say, “I know that God’s Spirit lives in you.” If you were a believer, it was a given. The indwelling Spirit of Christ was for them then, and for us now, both the confirmation and the guarantee that they belonged to Christ and experienced all the blessings and benefits of their union with Him.

Because of the Holy Spirit’s presence in them, they were assured of the resurrection of their bodies from the dead although they were still subject to physical death because of the presence of sin. They would die, yes, but that would not be the end. Just as Jesus rose from the dead because death could not hold Him captive forever, those who belong to Him, who are in Him and are united with Him by His Holy Spirit, will also rise from the dead because death cannot hold us prisoner either.

How can that be since we are human beings, part of this present corrupted world and therefore subject to the death that came upon the whole universe at the Fall? Paul understood that we shall still die – our physical bodies are still part of this earth. But that will not be the end.

The Bible teaches us that, as God’s sons and daughters, we have an inheritance; we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. But what do we inherit? Read what Peter wrote:

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” 2 Peter 1:3-4.

We inherit God’s nature in which we participate through His promises. Since God is perfect – there is no corruption in Him – He cannot die. Death could not hold Jesus because He, too, was sinless in His earthly life as the Son of God. When we are joined to Him by faith, death cannot hold us either because we have been made the righteousness of God in Him.

And so, just as Jesus rose from the dead, we will also be resurrected when He returns to complete the restoration of all things. Then we will experience the fullness and completeness of our inheritance – eternal life.

“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.” Romans 6:22.

Can you understand the process? Faith in Christ leads to the gift of righteousness and the presence of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit in us enables us to obey God; obedience leads to holiness – separation from sin and learning to think and live like God (because we have inherited His nature); holiness leads to eternal life.

What Jesus died on the cross for us, and through His resurrection from the dead, He removed the barriers to reconciliation to the Father. He gave us back the Holy Spirit who had departed from man at the Fall. He made possible a life of obedience to Him which will lead us to appropriate our inheritance and eventually to be raised from the dead to experience the fullness of eternal life. It is now up to us to work out in partnership with the Holy Spirit what He has already worked in us.

“…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil His good purpose.” Philippians 2:12b, 13.

Acknowledgement

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