What We KNOW as Believers

We, as Christians, don’t have to wonder or hope or try to get faith. We need to stop and consider what we know. Our key verse for this study is in 2 Timothy:

. . . for I KNOW whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that day. (2 Tim 1:12b KJV)

For we KNOW JESUS, our Savior and Lord, with whom we have a living, vital relationship—Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God! (Mt 16:16; 26:63; Joh 6:69) To KNOW someone means to have a relationship with, to comprehend, and to have experienced who they truly are as a person.

As a matter of fact, because we have received Jesus Christ as our Savior, Redeemer and Lord, we are now known as SONS OF THE LIVING GOD! (Rom 9:26) Hallelujah!

These are some of the vital things that we KNOW as believers:

That the Lord has set us apart for Himself; the Lord will hear us when we call upon Him! (Ps 4:3)
That because we are set apart for God (His anointed), He will answer us with the saving strength of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Ps 20:6)
That the Lord is great, and He is above all gods. (Ps 135:5)
That God’s works are marvelous. (Ps 139:14)
That Jesus is the Holy One of God. (Mk 1:24c; Lk 4:34c)
We know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. (Lk 8:10)
We know Jesus, our Good Shepherd. (Joh 10:14)
We know the Lord, because He dwells with us, and He lives in us. (Joh 14:17)
We know that Jesus dwells in the Father; we dwell in Jesus; and Jesus dwells in us. (Joh 14:20)
That wherever we go, we carry the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. (Rom 15:29)
That we have received the Spirit who is from God through whom we know the things that have been freely given to us by God. (1 Cor 2:12; 1 Joh 4:12-14)
We are the temple of God and the Holy Spirit dwells within each believer. (1 Cor 3:16; 6:19)
That we are in Christ because we keep His Word, and the love of God is perfected in us. (1 Joh 2:5)
That Jesus was manifested to take away our sins and in Him there is no sin. (1 Joh 3:5)
That we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. (1 Joh 3:14)
We know the Spirit of God because we confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, and He is from God. (1 Joh 4:2)
That we are born of God and know God because we love one another, and love is of God. (1 Joh 4:7)
We know that we have eternal life because we believe in the name of the Son of God and will continue to do so. (1 Joh 5:13)

Mercy, Peace & Love be Multiplied

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. (Jud 1:2 NKJV)

Take another look at that verse! The Holy Spirit chose to intensify the blessings of mercy, peace and grace by using the word multiplied.

To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom 1:7 NIV)

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. (2 Pet 1:2 NIV)

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God. (Gal 6:15-16 NKJV)

MERCY means: 1) compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm; 2) compassion, kindness or goodwill towards the miserable and afflicted. Mercy is when God decides not to punish us for our sins and wrongdoings.

PEACE means: 1) freedom from disturbance; tranquility; 2) to experience tranquility, harmony, and agreement. Psalm 7:11 (NKJV) says, God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day. But the Lord is not angry with believers. Jesus has purchased reconciliation and peace between believers and God. This is the peace that Jesus promised in John 14:27 (NKJV): Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. This is the peace that Jesus experienced in the core of His own pain and suffering that He shares with us.

LOVE: agape, Greek agapē, in the New Testament; the fatherly love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God. In Scripture, the transcendent agape love is the highest form of love. This kind of love is not based on performance or precision; it flows from the pure heart of God. This is a miracle-working type of love that has been given to us through faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior. It’s the most selfless and generous form of love we can imagine.

Jude begins his letter by praying this triad of blessings on all believers: Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. (Jud 1:2 NKJV) And he prayed for these blessings to be multiplied to us. He desires these blessings to come upon each believer in waves of blessings. He wants these blessings to flourish, proliferate, and be magnified in our lives—that they exceedingly abound! The blessings of God are found in His mercy, His peace, and His love— which are all revealed through His Son and extravagantly imparted to us by the Spirit. Glory to God!

Do We Have Ears that Hear?

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. (Mk 4:23 NKJV)

He who has ears to hear, let him hear! (Mt 11:15 NKJV)

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Rev 2:29 NKJV)

The Scriptures talk about people having “ears to hear” quite a bit. What can that mean to us as believers?

Do you know that God is always speaking to His people? And our relationship with our Savior is based, as any true relationship is, upon communication!

To quote Kris Vallotton (Bethel Church, Redding, CA), “Communication is probably the single greatest vehicle of any relationship.” Prayer is part of our communication with God and listening for His voice is the other part of that two-way communication. It is our responsibility to do the listening! Pay attention because the Lord’s voice will often be quiet and unobtrusive. And He may speak to you in ways that you don’t recognize.

Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; ¹²and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kgs 19:11-12 NKJV, emphasis added)

The wonderful thing about God is that He may use various ways to communicate with us. He uses the Scriptures to communicate clearly with us, but he may also use any of these other methods as well.

Visions: The Lord may give us visions which are simply images and concepts that play upon the screen of our imagination within our minds. Visions frequently require interpretation. So, when the Holy Spirit uses this method to communicate, we need to ask Him to clarify the meaning of the vision. (See Acts 2:17-18)
The still, small voice of the Lord: This can be perceived as a transient thought, an abrupt but strong impression, or an inner perception of a message from the Lord. (See 1 Kgs 19:11-13)
Creation: The very creation that God made speaks to us of His power, strength, creativity, provision, and beauty. Pay attention to any message that the Lord may give you through His creation. For me, when I was a brand-new believer, I was asking the Lord to show me His love. I was out with my fiancé driving on a country road. I kept looking at the beautiful sky above me that was just full of large, puffy, billowy clouds as far as the eye could see in EVERY direction. As I was observing those clouds, a church song came into my heart in which the chorus includes the phrase: Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray, in fathomless billows of love! (Song Wonderful Peace, lyrics by Warren D. Cornell, music by W. George Cooper – 1889)
The Lord used nature to communicate His great love for me with the image of fathomless billows of love that were demonstrated to me by the huge, billowing clouds before my own eyes—as far as the eye could see in every direction. To this day, 50 years later, I have never forgotten that message from the Lord that was just for me. I cherish it.
Circumstances: God is able to speak to us and to direct us through the circumstances of our lives. He can open doors of opportunity, or close them, as a way of directing us. However, we can easily misread a blockage that has been erected by the enemy and think that it is God directing us. But we would be wrong. Consequently, we should always seek wise counsel from our Pastor and from other mature believers whom we know very well, and who know us. Also, we must ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth to us about every step we need to take in our lives.

So, look back upon your life and recall the times when God used any of these various methods to speak to you or to direct you. Or, you may have a new example of how God communicated something to you. But the important thing to recognize is that there is communication flowing in your relationship with the Lord. Thank and praise the Lord for it! When you can receive such communication from God and ACT UPON IT, then you can be assured that you DO have ‘hearing ears’! God bless you.

The Holy Spirit in Us

As the Scriptures tell us, the Lord has placed His Spirit within all believers. In some places, the Bible even says that God poured out His Spirit upon us!

I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. (Ezek 36:27 NKJV)

And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,’ says the Lord God. (Ezek 39:29 NKJV)

Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. (Ac 2:33 NKJV)

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? (1 Cor 3:16 NIV)

The person who keeps his commandments abides in God, and God abides in him. This is how we can be sure that he remains in us: he has given us his Spirit. (1 Joh 3:24 ISV)

We need to listen for the leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit daily. We need to be continuously sensitive to His presence within us. The Holy Spirit was given to all believers to be a helper and teacher, and to guide us into all truth. (Joh 14:26; 16:13)

The Holy Spirit within a believer is the source of our revelation, wisdom and power. (1 Cor 2:10-11; Jas 1:5; Ac 1:8) The Holy Spirit supplies spiritual gifts to believers. (1 Cor 12:7-11) God, the Holy Spirit, has specific roles and obligations in the life of every believer. Take time as soon as possible to study this key feature of your salvation. God bless you!

Wisdom & Understanding

In the Bible, we often see that wisdom and understanding are linked together strongly.

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding He established the heavens . . . (Pro 3:19 NKJV)

For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. (Pro 2:6 NIV)

The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. (Pro 4:7 NIV)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (Pro 9:10 NIV)

He has made the earth by His power; He has established the world by His wisdom, and stretched out the heaven by His understanding. (Jer 51:15 NKJV)

The Lord uses wisdom and understanding together in combination to establish and accomplish great and mighty things. Because we are made in God’s image (Gen 9:6 NKJV) and since Christ is our example (1 Pet 2:21 NKJV), we too are strongly encouraged by the Word to gain wisdom and understanding.

Wisdom means prudence, insight, perceptiveness, or good judgment.

Understanding means empathy, kindness, or awareness. In considering these two attributes, we can see how they would work together quite effectively and supportively.

Daily, we can expand and increase both of these characteristics in our lives by reading the Bible faithfully. No matter what book of the Bible or what topic we may read, the Word of God is filled with the Spirit and the power of God—as well as God’s wisdom and understanding. The more we fill our hearts and minds with the Word, the more that we will operate with the wisdom and understanding of God.

Be eager students of the Word and you will reap the blessed and life-changing benefits.

The Words of Eternal Life

Who has the Words of Eternal Life? The Word tells us,

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. ⁶⁷Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” ⁶⁸But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Joh 6:66-69, underscoring added)

What did Peter mean when he said that Jesus had the “words of eternal life”? He meant that everything that Jesus taught and lived by His example would lead us into eternal life.

Jesus came to die in order to purchase our salvation. John 3:16 reminds us that all who believe in Jesus Christ receive eternal life. And the Lord Jesus Himself said,

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. (Joh 6:63) Jesus’ very Words carry life!

These are deep spiritual concepts that are worth meditating upon and asking the Holy Spirit for insight into. Here is another point of view:

“He is the way, the truth, and the life (Joh 14:6). And the aim of giving Himself as the truth to the world is freedom. You will know the truth and the truth will make you free. Free from the guilt and power of sin. Free from deadness and blindness and judgment.” – Excerpt from John Piper teaching.

Jesus gives us freedom from “deadness,” as John Piper says above. That’s a spiritually intense idea worth time in meditation and prayer.

Study the life and words of Jesus Christ and you will be studying the Words of Eternal Life. God bless you.

Song in the Night

I call to remembrance my song in the night; I meditate within my heart, and my spirit makes diligent search. (Ps 77:6)

The psalmist ransacked his knowledge, his memory, his intelligence—his whole nature, and his entire soul, either to find comfort or to recall the songs of praise that he remembered singing in past times unto the Lord. He was recalling his songs of praise, making a diligent search for them in his heart.

The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me—a prayer to the God of my life. (Ps 42:8)

The psalmist is trusting in the mercy of God. His song in the night is a song of praise to God for His salvation and goodness. It’s a remembrance of all the good things that God has done for him.

You shall have a song as in the night when a holy festival is kept, and gladness of heart as when one goes with a flute, to come into the mountain of the Lord, to the Mighty One of Israel. (Isa 30:29)

In this Bible verse, the prophet reminds the people that the song in the night arises due to gladness of heart, such as the joyous sound of a flute, when praising God and approaching Him in worship. A wakeful, unsettled night may be relieved with a heartfelt song in the night.

At such times, it’s good for us to remember the Lord, and to know that we need Him. When troubles, trials, or pains assail us in the night, keeping us awake and in anguish, it is the time to allow the Holy Spirit to instruct us. It’s a time to feed upon and meditate upon the Word of God—which has the power to comfort us and to teach us.

This is my comfort in my affliction, for Your word has given me life. (Ps 119:50, emphasis added)

For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. (Rom 15:4, emphasis added)

Permit a song in the night and the comfort of God’s Word to minister to your heart when illness, turmoil, or anxieties assail you and attack your sleep. God’s loving plan for you is that you have peaceful sleep.

I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. (Ps 4:8)

. . . For so He gives His beloved sleep. (Ps 127:2)

The Power of God

The Bible has quite a lot to say about the power of God. Here are some selected verses.

. . . and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. (Rom 1:4)

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. (Rom 1:16)

. . . but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor 1:24)

And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Cor 2:4-5)

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Cor 1:18)

I’m sure that you’ve noticed the recurring theme in these verses that Jesus is called the power of God or the verse may state that power comes through His good news. How did Jesus access His Father’s power? He accessed it through the Holy Spirit, for our Lord said:

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Ac 1:8) Jesus spoke this to His disciples, and told them that they would receive power through the Holy Spirit.

Further on in the New Testament, we read:

For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. (1 Thes 1:5)

Each believer receives power in the same way that Jesus did, through the Holy Spirit and His presence in us. We must learn to cooperate with the Lord and the Holy Spirit through our knowledge of the Word and through our obedience to it. As we obediently serve Him and allow Him to lead and guide us, we will move and operate in His mighty power.

Beauty

“Beauty will save the world.” ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth. (Ps 50:2)

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation,
Who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isa 52:7)

What is Zion and why is it important to Christians?

Jerusalem and Zion are one and the same city. Zion was the place of God’s special presence among His people, and the place where they turned for help and deliverance. Jerusalem has been the holiest city in Judaism and the ancestral and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people since the 10th century BCE (before Common Era). During classical antiquity, Jerusalem was considered the center of the world, where God resided.

What does all of this have to do with our topic of beauty? Because God promises to shine forth out of Zion, which is called the perfection of beauty!

Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous! For praise from the upright is beautiful. (Ps 33:1)

The Word of God reminds us that praise is beautiful—not only in the sight of God but in the sight of men, as well. If I happen to find a television program that is broadcasting a praise and worship service, I find it so beautiful to see that I’m moved to tears.

. . . rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. (1 Pet 3:4, emphasis added)

In this verse from first Peter, the Word of God tells us that a gentle and quiet spirit is indestructibly beautiful! It is also very treasured by our God. So, we see that God considers salvation to be a beautiful thing, along with our praises to Him.

It is this inner quality of beauty that God commends and which the entire world unerringly recognizes! We will achieve this level of beauty as we obey God and seek to follow Him. He is the only One who transforms lives because He is the glory and the lifter of our heads! (Ps 3:3) Because His Spirit lives within each one of us, His beauty will shine forth through us.

This is why Isaiah 52:7 (at top of this article) calls the feet of those who spread the Gospel “beautiful feet”! We all may confidently pursue this beauty that shines forth from our inner man.

HOW Does a Soul Prosper?

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. (3 Joh 1:2)

How does a soul prosper? What is a soul? According to the Bible, we each have three parts: a body, a soul, and a spirit. (see 1 Thes 5:23)

Each one of us is a spirit; we live in our own body; and we each have a soul. Mankind was made in the image of God (Gen 1:26); and God is a Spirit (Joh 4:24). Therefore we, too, are spirit-beings.

We can see that we each have a soul that is distinctly separate and different from our spirit:

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Heb 4:12)

Even though the spirit and the soul are joined together, they are still separate parts of every individual. So, we live in a body (2 Cor 5:6, 8) that has a soul. The soul is where the emotions, the will, and the intellect dwell.

Did you see that according to 3 John 1:2, the level or degree to which we prosper, and/or obtain the health and healing of God is directly related to the level or degree that our soul (the thinking, reasoning part of us: The Mind) is prospering?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Rom 12:2)

So our circumstances and situations can be changed once we have changed the way that we think about them! How may we change our thoughts? When we renew our minds with God’s promises contained in His Word, we change the way that we think about our situation. And what naturally follows is that our emotions and will then follow where our thoughts take us.

God has given each one of us the gift of grace (Eph 2:8). By God’s gift of grace, we may obediently and intentionally place our soul upon the path of prosperity.

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Tag: Spirit