Blog By PB: "Which Side of the Cross Are You On?"
The early church was praying for Peter while he was in prison. As the Body of Christ, we are commanded to pray. It's who we are and what we do. For we pray in the power of Christ's resurrection. The power that raised Him from the cross is the same power that now is in us. Amen and amen.
Our key text today is Romans 6:4-5: "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection..."
The cross is the emblem of suffering and shame. There is the life we led before we came to the Cross and there is the life we lead on the resurrected side of the Cross. We are alive because He is alive!
Death is separation from God. The Cross is a declaration that each one of us must go through it and we will emerge on the other side "in the newness of life."
Think about Noah's ark for a moment: Those who believed in what Noah was doing stepped out of a world that was condemned and walked into the ark. The Cross is the ark: we walk out of this world and into the Cross. We are then delivered from death, destruction and corruption.
How does God see us? He sees the Cross! We are filled with Christ and His love. Our lifestyle will reflect that powerful reality. God has defined His way of salvation: Christ. Christ is at the center of all God does.
The old man, the old nature that we all possess as fallen children of Adam must pass through the Cross under the power of the Holy Spirit. Why? In 1 John 3:1 it says, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." The Cross makes it possible for me to become His child. Thus, I present myself to Him as one who was raised from the dead. I will be a living sacrifice for His glory.
We are now in a time where the difference between those who are walking in the "newness of the [resurrected] life" and those who are not is becoming more and more apparent. If you are in Christ, you now need to see yourself as God sees you! You are a new creation: the old has passed away and the new has come. (2 Cor. 5:17)
You are no longer under the law, under having to work out your salvation, or still striving to overcome sin. He was revealed to take away our sin. We're in Him. If we completely surrender to Him, the old struggles will begin to drop away. Sanctification is a process and begins the day you surrender to Him. 1 John 3:6 says, "No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him." We abide in Him and we no longer want to sin.
We need to see Him through revelation. Moses asked to see God's glory: his struggles lessened after that. Our hunger and thirst will be fulfilled. We can read the Bible every day, but until the Holy Spirit illuminates the Scriptures for us, we will continue to struggle. An encounter with God is life-changing, pure and simple.
So, are hungry are you? How much deeper in Him do you want to go? Or, are you indifferent?
Our King of kings and Lord of lords is looking for hungry people Now, more than ever before, are hungry seekers after the Truth needed. In John 14:16-17, it says, "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you."
Jesus did not leave us as orphans. He did not leave us comfortless: because He lives, I will live also! If we love Him, we shall be loved by Him and His Father. It is our choice.
John 14:23 give us this beautiful promise: "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them." Holy wow!
If we walk in His resurrected life, we are empowered by that very Life. He is our Life. He is our Power. If we are baptized unto His death, He puts His life inside of us. The same Spirit that raised Him from the dead is the same Spirit that makes His home in you!
Time is short. The chasm is widening. We are either in Him or not. God doesn't grade on a curve. Right is right and wrong is wrong. There is no place for a 90% Christian. It is His righteous way or nothing at all.
Choose this day whom you will serve. If you choose Him, He will give you the very power you need as you walk on this resurrected side of the Cross!
Our key text today is Romans 6:4-5: "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection..."
The cross is the emblem of suffering and shame. There is the life we led before we came to the Cross and there is the life we lead on the resurrected side of the Cross. We are alive because He is alive!
Death is separation from God. The Cross is a declaration that each one of us must go through it and we will emerge on the other side "in the newness of life."
Think about Noah's ark for a moment: Those who believed in what Noah was doing stepped out of a world that was condemned and walked into the ark. The Cross is the ark: we walk out of this world and into the Cross. We are then delivered from death, destruction and corruption.
How does God see us? He sees the Cross! We are filled with Christ and His love. Our lifestyle will reflect that powerful reality. God has defined His way of salvation: Christ. Christ is at the center of all God does.
The old man, the old nature that we all possess as fallen children of Adam must pass through the Cross under the power of the Holy Spirit. Why? In 1 John 3:1 it says, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." The Cross makes it possible for me to become His child. Thus, I present myself to Him as one who was raised from the dead. I will be a living sacrifice for His glory.
We are now in a time where the difference between those who are walking in the "newness of the [resurrected] life" and those who are not is becoming more and more apparent. If you are in Christ, you now need to see yourself as God sees you! You are a new creation: the old has passed away and the new has come. (2 Cor. 5:17)
You are no longer under the law, under having to work out your salvation, or still striving to overcome sin. He was revealed to take away our sin. We're in Him. If we completely surrender to Him, the old struggles will begin to drop away. Sanctification is a process and begins the day you surrender to Him. 1 John 3:6 says, "No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him." We abide in Him and we no longer want to sin.
We need to see Him through revelation. Moses asked to see God's glory: his struggles lessened after that. Our hunger and thirst will be fulfilled. We can read the Bible every day, but until the Holy Spirit illuminates the Scriptures for us, we will continue to struggle. An encounter with God is life-changing, pure and simple.
So, are hungry are you? How much deeper in Him do you want to go? Or, are you indifferent?
Our King of kings and Lord of lords is looking for hungry people Now, more than ever before, are hungry seekers after the Truth needed. In John 14:16-17, it says, "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you."
Jesus did not leave us as orphans. He did not leave us comfortless: because He lives, I will live also! If we love Him, we shall be loved by Him and His Father. It is our choice.
John 14:23 give us this beautiful promise: "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them." Holy wow!
If we walk in His resurrected life, we are empowered by that very Life. He is our Life. He is our Power. If we are baptized unto His death, He puts His life inside of us. The same Spirit that raised Him from the dead is the same Spirit that makes His home in you!
Time is short. The chasm is widening. We are either in Him or not. God doesn't grade on a curve. Right is right and wrong is wrong. There is no place for a 90% Christian. It is His righteous way or nothing at all.
Choose this day whom you will serve. If you choose Him, He will give you the very power you need as you walk on this resurrected side of the Cross!
Blog by PB: "Our Only True Witness"
As we have mentioned before, the Holy Spirit is a Person. One of the most important things we can do in our walk with God
is to get to know the Holy Spirit as a Person.
There are many reasons
why we can refer to Him as a Person. He has an intellect (1 Cor.2:10).
He has a will (1 Cor.12:11). He can speak (Gal.4:6). He has emotions; He
can love; He is the Spirit of love (Rom.5:5). He can be lied to ( Acts
5:3). These are just a few examples. We will get into more detail on this in the
future, but the one thing that sets Him apart is, He is our
witness.
Before the beginning of time, the Holy Spirit was involved
in everything that God did. He is a witness to the plans that God has for
us. In Jeremiah 29:11, He says through the prophet Jeremiah, "I know the
plans that I have for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans
to give you a hope and a future."
The Holy Spirit is a witness and was involved in all the
covenants that God made with man throughout the ages. Every time God
made a covenant or a promise to those who would be faithful, He
revealed Himself and His intentions for mankind.
The Holy Spirit was present when God made a covenant with
Abraham, marching through the halves of the sacrifices declaring and
decreeing His goodness and His intentions for mankind (Gen.15:1-20). This was just a prelude to one final and awesome act of God for Him to have
fellowship with man, His creation.
You might ask, how does this help me? I already know the
Holy Spirit is omniscient--all knowing--and that He was a witness to all things
from the beginning of time.
It's true that we may know a lot of things about the Holy
Spirit. We may know that His main job is to reveal Jesus. We may know
that He dwells on the inside of us. But the fact of our knowing will
have little effect on our behavior and our life unless we know him as a living Person.
If it is gifts we want, we'll do what we can to obtain those
gifts. If it's power that we're after, we will do what we can to obtain
power. If it's wisdom or whatever we may be desirous of, we will do what we can to add it to our life. If the Holy Spirit is power, we'll be proud to have it and
feel superior to those who do not.
But: If the Holy Spirit is our Best Friend, if He's "the most important Person," enormous changes will take place in our
lives.
So why should we know Him as a witness? Because there is no
other way to know all the things that God has prepared for those that
love Him (1 Cor. 2:9). There is no other way to know intimately that we are
the children of God (Rom.8:16). There is no other way to know that
through the process of the Abrahamic covenant and what we now know as
the "new and living way," God has "perfected forever" those that
are sanctified (Heb.10:14-15).
The Holy Spirit is our personal Witness to
the fact that this has taken place. If we know Him as a Person, we will
depend on Him as we would our best friend, who would stand up and testify
on our behalf in court, having sworn under oath that everything that he
was a witness to is the whole truth and nothing but the truth! We know that about the Holy Spirit, because He is the Spirit of truth.
To be continued
Sermon: "Trying vs. Trusting"
Turn the volume up before you click.Trying vs. Trusting: Are You A Son Or Servant?
Here's the worship service.
Blog by PB: "Your BEST Friend"
The best way I can help you understand what the Holy Spirit
adds to your life is by using an example that I need your help with.
If
you were to take your right hand and cover up your right eye so you
couldn't see with it (or your left if you prefer) you would notice
something different. You can still see, but something happened. You lost your depth perception; you lost that third dimension. Now if
you take your hand off of the eye you covered up... Wow! Now you can see
three dimensionally. You have your depth perception back.
This is what
the Holy Spirit gives to those who have received the gift. He gives you
that depth perception. He gives you that "third dimension" view into the spirit
realm.You may be saved, you may be born of God, but if you are not
walking in the Spirit, if you haven't received the gift, then you don't have
that depth perception regarding your salvation. You can still see but
not perfectly. To see the beauty and the depths of what God has done for
us and what He is anxious to do for us, we need but look into that
dimension. This is what the Holy Spirit offers to those who accept His
friendship.
Imagine having a friend--the best friend that you ever had.
One you could trust your very life with, and this friend has the
ability to see into the future. He has the ability to lead you through
troubled waters without being harmed. A friend who somehow knows your
life from the beginning to the end, and has nothing but your best
interests at heart.
I have just described just a small portion of what the Holy Spirit is to us.
The illustration that I'm about to use you have probably
heard before, but at the risk of being redundant, I would like to use it
again because I feel it best describes what the Holy Spirit is to us.
I
used to love going to parades when I was little. I was very fascinated
with all the floats, with all those cartoon characters and everything about
it was just magic to me. I'm still probably just as fascinated with
parades as I was when I was little.
On New Year's Day, there is a parade
in Pasadena, California, called the Rose Parade. This is a fabulous
parade. What a grand event it is. The person who organizes this amazing
event, the one who orchestrates what happens from beginning to end, has a high and lofty view of the whole affair. He is sometimes discreetly
flying overhead in a helicopter; he can see the whole parade from
beginning to end. He can see where the problems are. He can even detect
problems before they even happen. With all the planning and all the
contingencies, there are things put in place to deal with SNAFU's and SNAFU's do happen.
So our beloved Holy Spirit knows our lives from beginning
to end. Just like the grand marshal of the parade, He knows all the stuff
that is going to be encountered on this parade route. Our awesome God
has given us everything that we need that pertains to life and Godliness
(2 Peter 1:3). Because He can see the beginning from the end and the
end from the beginning, He has already provided everything that we would
need to make it through this parade.
We just haven't known about this. We just haven't known how to access this. Maybe now we're beginning to see
the importance of the Holy Spirit.
We have been blessed with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1:3). Jesus said
that He, the Holy Spirit, would guide you into all truth, as He is the
Spirit of truth.
Jesus also said that He would show you things to come.
What a Friend! (Jn. 16:13). Jesus said that He would teach us all things and that He would bring to our remembrance all the things that we have been
taught. He will take the things and the mistakes we've made in the past and
remind us of them when we start to make them again. Of course we have
the option of listening, or not (Jn.14:26).
The Holy Spirit is also
known as the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, of counsel and might and
knowledge (Isa 11:2).
How can I involve the Holy Spirit in my life right away? (That would sure be the question I would ask!) Peter says, "Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the
gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2:38).
If you have already done the three things that the Scripture has mentioned--repent, be baptized in the name of Christ and beceive, by faith, that your sins have been forgiven--then you have in fact received the
gift of the Holy Spirit.
We will go into this much deeper next
week!
To be continued
Blog by PB: "The Most Important Person"
I would like to take this time to introduce to some and
present to others the person of the Holy Spirit.
Oh yes, the Holy Spirit
is a person; the most important person in your life. I know, your wife
should be up there on the scale of importance, your husband should be up
there on the scale of importance, your children your family should be
extremely important to you.
The Bible says that the Holy Spirit
is to be the most important person in your life. If the Holy Spirit is
the most important person in your life, then we can love our wives as
Christ loved the church (Eph. 5:25).
If the Holy Spirit becomes the best
friend we have ever had, then your spouse could be the best friend you
ever had. Our parents and our children could be in the best relationships
we've ever had.
Honestly, without the Holy Spirit, we don't have the
capability of loving the way we ought to and we don't have the capability
of walking in righteousness, peace and joy like it says we are to (Rom.
14: 17).
Without the Holy Spirit we won't really get to know Jesus in
our hearts because the Holy Spirit's main purpose is to reveal Jesus
(John 16:13-15).
Without the Holy Spirit we are blind spiritually. We have to
depend on our natural fallen human abilities. More times than not, incorrect decisions will be made, decisions that are very important. You might say, "Well, I know lots of people who are
successful, who have successful marriages, successful businesses etc.
and are doing just fine without the Holy Spirit."
My answer to that is,
"Of course you can be successful financially and seemingly in other
areas of life but why in the world would you want to, when God has given
this awesome gift to walk along beside us to help us"? ( The Greek word
for this divine helper that God has given us is Parakletos, which
literally means advocate, intercessor).
I owned a successful service
business in the Washington, Bellevue, Mercer Island, Kirkland and Redmond
area. I got to know many wealthy people and got to help them with
their fancy houses and fancy toys, and yeah, it's a trip. Once you take a
deeper look under the surface, you will find people who are living lives
of desperation. They look good and they smell good but they are
spiritually bankrupt. It's not "stuff" that satisfies you; most of these
"wealthy people" are looking for love and fulfillment in all the wrong
places.
So let us begin to talk about what God has done for us and how
we can live very successful lives and be very fulfilled at the same
time. Yes, yes, yes, God wants us to be successful in every area of our
life. 3 John 2 says, "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest
prosper and be in health even as thy soul prospereth" (KJV).
The Holy Spirit has many attributes: "The fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness,
faithfulness, meekness, and temperance" (Gal 5: 22).
He is the Spirit of
God, the Spirit of Christ and just like God, He is omnipotent,
omniscient, omnipresent.
When Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan, He
appeared in the form of a dove. He is sensitive like a dove and yet all
powerful.
So, if God is love, then that makes Jesus the Son of Love, which
then makes the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Love.
If God is light, then
Jesus is the Son of Light, which then makes the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Light.
If God is grace, then Jesus is the Son of Grace, which then makes
the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Grace. He is referred to that way (Heb. 10:29). We could go on and on and on and on.
No, the Holy Spirit is not some green fog that comes
sliding under the door. He is much much more than mere influence. If
you're going to walk with God and enjoy the benefits of salvation, then
it's time to acknowledge the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, most people in
the world and Christians alike don't even acknowledge that He exists.
Those that do know He is alive and well, do not fellowship with Him nor
allow Him to fellowship with them. Somehow they think that they will just be
able to glide through life without this incredible gift that God has
given us.
Yes, He is a "gift." He is not a thing. He is the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God Almighty, the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1-2). The word for "spirit" in Greek is pneuma, which would normally take the pronoun "it," but Jesus showed the
person of the Holy Spirit by speaking of "He" instead: "When He the
Spirit of truth, has come He will guide you into all truth" (John
16:13). (emphasis mine).
Just as you have a unique personality, so does the Holy Spirit.
In fact there are characteristics ascribed to Him that only a person can
have. He is a Being with intellect, emotion and a will.
So let's look at some scriptures. Let's begin unwrapping
this awesome gift that God has given us. This is just the beginning of a
series about the Holy Spirit and how we can know for a fact that the
Holy Spirit has been given to us. He's not a feeling (though you will
know for certainty that He is with you).
The biggest mistake most people
make is trying to make the Holy Spirit a feeling, looking for
indicators that the Holy Spirit might be working in their life or that
they might have the in-filling of the Holy Spirit. We will show you it's
a fact that if you have met certain criteria, you have received the gift
of the Holy Spirit.
In Ephesians 5:17-21 it says, "Wherefore be not unwise, but
understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine
where is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to
yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making
melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all
things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of the Lord."
Verse 17 says, "be not unwise but understanding what the
will of the Lord is." What is the will of God? To be filled with the
Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. This also indicates that you are unwise
if you don't receive this gift of the Holy Spirit.
To be
continued!
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