All that Believe

Good Morning to you! Or maybe it's good afternoon or evening, anyway, howdy! What a wonderful text of Scripture I came across that I just wanted to share with you, I believe I've already probably shared it but it is so wonderful that I just had to share it again! Paul is speaking to the Jews in Acts 13, and in vv.38-39, he says, "Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins:  And by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." That little words all is surely a wonderful one. ALL who believe in Christ are justified from all things! I don't know about you but I have a good idea that you're like me in the sense that we all, there's that word again, all of us have things in our past that we'd give almost anything if we could get rid of it. In fact, we probably have things in our present that we also would love to be rid of. This text should be staggeringly good news to us then! Jesus died for that sin, whatever it is, and when we believe in Him, we are justified from it as well as all things. Let's rejoice in that great news today, no matter what may be threatening to bring you down today, He is greater, and His love never fails. May the Lord bless you today.

The Enemy Is Us

Have you ever had a moment in which you just saw yourself, I mean who you were before you came to Christ? Paul minces no words, when in Galatians 5:19-21 he says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,  idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,  envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." I want to be real blunt here, who of us thinks we can just stop this flood of wickedness? He tells us in 3 little words that this is only a sampling! He concludes this litany of lasciviousness by saying, "...and such like..." This is what lurks in the heart of men and women, boys and girls no matter what our background or upbringing. Jeremiah just lays it out when he says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?" (17:9) In other words, none of us can know the depth of wickedness in our own hearts. Why am I saying this? Because the days we live in are evil. They are evil because man is evil. There is only one way to stem this tide of evil, and that has already been done a little over 2,000 years ago outside Jerusalem. Jesus Christ said in Luke 19:10, "...for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” You and I were surely lost. But He has done what we could never do. Paul said in Romans 5:6-8: "For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." When our hearts were still full of what Paul sums up by "..and such like" Jesus died for us and rose again to do what Paul told the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." He didn't say that we're striving to make them new, he said they are new! That is who we are now in Christ! How do we then overcome the flesh? Paul says in Galatians 5:16, " I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." In other words, remember who you are! John said, "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. (1 Jn.5:4) I just wanted to share this today because I needed it, I hope it helped you too. Look to HIM, not yourself. May the Lord bless you.