judges

January 15, 2020

“Be Careful to Live Properly”

12 Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world. – 1 Peter 2:12 NLT​

1 Peter 2:10-12 NLT

Before we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we were just one in a mass of people. Now that we have accepted Him and because of God’s great mercy, we have been adopted into a family, the family of God. We now bear the name of Christ and our conduct should reflect our new identity. Just as a newborn baby is automatically a citizen of the country into which they are born, so are we citizens of heaven the very moment we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. The baby has all the rights and privileges afforded by that citizenship even though he/she is unable to take advantage of them at that moment. The same is true of a newborn babe in Christ Jesus. We have all the rights and privileges afforded the citizens of heaven. We are “citizens with the saints” .

19 So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family.–Eph. 2:19 (NLT)

There is no waiting! We have all the rights of a citizen of heaven now!

We need to walk carefully and be alert at all times because we do not want to embarrass our new family. We must be careful of the things we do and say so that outsiders will have no reason to speak negatively about our Lord and Savior. Our honorable behavior brings glory to God and his body, the Church.

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” -Anonymous

Post 01-15-2020

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April 25, 2017

You Just Can’t Hide It!

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13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.  ​ – Hebrews 4:13 NLT


We are told in the first chapter of John that “the Word became human and dwelt among us”. That Word was and is Jesus Christ. He is still alive and active. He stands at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for us. His Holy Spirit searches our hearts and minds and knows our very thoughts. We can all “talk the talk” but only each of us and God know whether or not we are “walking the walk”.

​ He knows our thoughts and judges our intentions. We cannot fool Him, we cannot hide our thoughts from Him and we cannot physically hide from Him. He sees all, hears all, and knows all about us. And one day, “every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess” that He is Lord. We can do it now and spend an eternity with Him or we can wait until judgment day and spend an eternity in hell. Jesus wants everyone to go to heaven, but He knows that not every one will choose to go. The choice is ours.
 
10 ​ But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives.
I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.”
​– Jeremiah 17:10 NLT​


“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” -Anonymous

Post 04-25-2017

March 9, 2016

Beyond Knowledge

even-smaller-bug-light118 “When he sits on the throne as king, he must copy for himself this body of instruction on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. — Deut. 17:18 NLT

God knew that once the Israelis had settled in the land and become comfortable, that they would look around and desire what the other nations had.  They would grow tired of the judges and desire a king so they could be like the nations around them.  God had given Moses several guidelines for the king once he had been anointed.  Most of those were what not to do and had to do with position and possessions.  But the positive thing he was required to do was to copy the whole body of the instructions on a scroll.  To be sure, he did this himself, he had to do it in the presence of the priests.  Then he must keep it with him and read it every day.  One would think that this would have been sufficient to keep the kings in line with what God expected.  But that was not the case.  The majority of the kings were not godly and worshipped other gods.  The lesson that we can learn from this is that head knowledge is useless unless it affects the heart.  The devil knows the Bible but it doesn’t keep him from being the devil.  Just reading the Bible on a daily basis will not change us.  A heart change only takes place when we fully believe that Jesus, the Son of God, died for our sins.  Just saying the words does not make it happen.  We need confession and we need believing.
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9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved. 10 We believe with our hearts, and so we are made right with God. And we declare with our mouths that we believe, and so we are saved   — Romans 9, 10 NCV​

Post 03-09-2016