Use the form on the right to contact us.
You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right.
123 Street Avenue, City Town, 99999
(123) 555-6789
email@address.com
You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab.
Link to read me page with more information.
Filtering by Category: Bible Topic
If God could save you because you're a good person, or because you are kind to other people, then why did Jesus have to come and die? Because the Bible says there is none righteous, no, not one (Romans 3:10). That verse emphasizes it twice. There's no one that is righteous. That's why Jesus had to come.
Read MoreMany years ago, I taught in Rick Renner’s Bible school and ministered at a convention he held in Riga, Latvia. I saw the beginnings of a church which grew quickly. Seeing the people in their newly established church was one of the most life-changing experiences I have ever encountered.
Read MoreDid dinosaurs really exist? When did they live? Did they roam through the garden of Eden? Did Adam have to name them? Are they extinct today because Noah could not fit them on the ark? If the earth is only six thousand years old, how can science tell us these creatures are millions of years old? Can science be trusted?
Read MoreThe dividing line for heaven and hell is not your works; the dividing line for heaven and hell is receiving Jesus Christ and the righteousness of God.
Read MoreWe want our tithes and offerings to have eternal value, so how do we bring the life of the Holy Spirit into our giving? Throughout the Word of God, giving is compared to sowing seed. For example, in 2 Corinthians 9:6 it says, “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”
Read MoreSolomon was in a state of carnality when he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. It wasn’t until this last chapter that he recovered his spiritual common sense. After years of looking for happiness outside of his relationship with God, he made the deduction that it is best to serve the Lord from your youth and not reach the end of life filled with feelings of bitterness.
Read MoreAngels cannot be numbered. And these mentioned in our text are the elect angels who form two thirds of the angels created. The other third of the angels fell with Lucifer at his rebellion (Revelation 12:4) and are bound in chains today under the earth (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 6).
Read MoreWe have seen how receiving the grace of God transforms a person’s life in an amazing way, bringing them from lonely exile into the palace of the King. This initial type of grace, the grace that brings salvation, is known as “convicting grace.” This is where it all begins: each of us starts our new life in Christ by receiving convicting grace.
Read MoreOften an individual who has had a vision will scrutinize the vision over and over again, instead of scrutinizing the Word. And after dissecting the vision many times, the vision ends up being bigger than it was in the beginning.
Read MoreYour memory is part of your soul. When filled with God’s promises it can help produce great faith to trust God.
Read MoreAfter examining the sacrifice for three days, the person brought the sacrifice to the priest to be examined. The person examined the sacrifice and the priest examined the sacrifice. The priest did not examine the person.
Read MoreSome pastors get the idea they have the power in the church. In reality, the people are the true power of the church. God can very easily replace pastors, but it is more difficult to replace whole congregations! Many congregations have continued to exist for long periods of time without a pastor, but no church can exist without a congregation.
Read MoreSome translations of 2 Corinthians 12:7 say the thorn was given to Paul to prevent him from being puffed up with pride. But would Satan actually send something to us to keep us from sinning?
Read MoreBy grace through faith is how people are saved today. But how were they saved in the Old Testament? This is one of my favorite questions to ask a new group of Bible School students. The answer is, in most cases, one of two. Those in the Old Testament were saved by keeping the law or by animal sacrifices. Nether Jews nor Gentiles were ever saved by the law or sacrifices, though God gave both.
Read More“For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.” (Romans 12:4-5)
All believers have personal and doctrinal differences. Yet, God sees us united in the one body of His Son. God desires us to love each other as we love ourselves.
Read MoreI consider this to be the greatest Christmas passage in scripture. Here Jesus is speaking, and I want you to notice what He said. It says in verse five, "Therefore, when he came into the world," this is when He came into the manger, this is when He became a human being. He's been to the earth many times as the angel of the Lord, as the rock, as the cloud that overshadowed the children of Israel. He was the burning bush that spoke to Moses. He came in so many ways, but in those cases, He always came and then He left. But when He came into a human body, He remained, and still remains in a human body today. It's a resurrected body, but once He took on a human body it would be forever.
Read MoreIf the firstfruits or tithe belong to the Lord, why doesn’t He just keep it in the first place? Why does He bless us and ask us to give a tenth back to Him? Because the Lord says to honor Him with the firstfruits of all our increase (Proverbs 3:9), and there is no show of honor if we don’t give to Him. If the Lord just kept ten percent of our income, there would be no honor for Him to receive. He loves to see us succeed and prosper, but He loves it even more when, of our own free will, we give back to Him.
Read More
“As it is written: There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10, Psalm 14:3)
This quotation is found in many parts of the Old Testament, the prophets as well as the Psalms. Our verse in Romans 3:10 simply shows God’s word has much to say about itself. But the most important thing is the atmosphere contained in the Word through the whole of the Old and New Testaments. There is no need of any outside source to prove itself. Why is this important? Because the word becomes a part of our lives, controlling, stabilizing and guiding every move we make. We become self-sufficient because the word in us is self-sufficient. We need no outside support or proof of our belief in our relationship with Jesus Christ.
The world compels us to compare ourselves with other religions, philosophies or political views. There is no higher standard in our life than God Himself and His Word. Jesus did not call Himself, “a way”, or “a truth.” You never look for “a truth” to support “the truth.” Jesus is the only way and the only truth. Why do we need anything else?
Old and New Testament Self-Verification
The Old Testament says many times of itself, "thus says the Lord", as well as “it is written.” And the New Testament simultaneously declares, "it is written.” The scriptures do not defend the fact they are written by God. God does not treat His word as theory. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the word treats God’s authorship as fact as we do the theory of gravity.
It Stands Written
A more correct Greek way of saying “it is written” is, “it stands written.” In the New Testament, the meaning of the word written, found in the phrase “it is written”, is in the perfect tense. The perfect tense means the action happened in the past with results that keep coming to the present. Simply put, it stood written long before it was written. It was known by God from eternity past and it only found its way onto parchment when the writers of the Bible transcribed what they heard from the Holy Spirit. The Word of God is eternal. How can something that began in time be used to support something that is timeless?
All of it Has to be True
Jesus handled the Old Testament as the sword of truth in the four gospels. If you do not believe one part, how can you believe any part? If you do not believe what Jesus said about the Bible, then you do not believe what Jesus said about Himself. For He declares Himself to be the revealed word of God and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophesies written about Himself as the only means of salvation for all mankind.
Hebrews 10:5-7 tells of the first time Jesus spoke about the Old Testament, calling it the “volume of the book it is written of me.” He also told of His knowledge of the mission He was called to fulfill, to do the will of God. Also, as a young child Jesus spoke to the Jewish religious leaders and Mary, of His mission to do the will of God by fulfilling the scriptures of the Old Testament.
At the introduction of His public ministry, Jesus spoke to His hometown crowd from the synagogue as was His custom. He announced that the scripture He was reading from was fulfilled in their ears that day. He knew how to find the scripture from Isaiah though there was no chapter and verse separations. He was well accomplished in handling the Bible which He quoted, and He had written.
After this introduction of His ministry, He was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by Satan. At each of three temptations of personal testing by Satan, Jesus responded to each with the word of God from the book of Deuteronomy, saying “it is written.”
Jesus was confronted by the crowd and the religious leaders about issues of life. Jesus defended paying taxes from the consistent view of the Old Testament as rendering to God the things of God (tithes and offerings) and to Caesar, the things of Caesar (government taxes).
In marriage and divorce, He went to the Old Testament to Genesis 2, telling how the two in marriage become one. In keeping the law, He told them they did not understand the law or prophets quoting “I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the living, not of the dead.” He confirmed that Abraham was still alive though he physically had left the earth thousands of years before.
Jesus quoted the Word on His resurrection day when He joined two men on the road to Emmaus and spoke of His resurrection. He explained the scriptures of Himself from Moses through the prophets.
The Church is Built on the Scriptures
Christianity is not a religion, nor can it be compared to religions. Although religions contain some truths, they are not the truth. Every aspect of our faith in Christ and in God’s Word is truth, absolute, unchangeable truth. All religions will one day be removed from the earth at the Second Coming of Christ to rule, but the Word of God will live and remain forever as it has existed forever. So, New Testament truth and the Church of Jesus Christ must also be built on Old Testament truth.
The Church is described as “built on the foundation of the apostles (New Testament writers) and prophets (Old Testament writers), Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20). As the chief “cornerstone” Jesus joins the two walls of the Old and New Testament. The Old Testament pointed forward to His coming and the New Testament looks back on His eternal work in life, death on the cross, resurrection and ascension into heaven
Acts and the Epistles
Although the Church Age enjoys many benefits unknown in the Old Testament, it must find its foundations for those benefits in the Law and Prophets. This can be found beginning in the book of Acts and running through the New Testament epistles. “It is written” is as common in the New Testament writings as it is in the Old.
In Acts 13:33, Paul taught the religious Jews in the synagogue in Antioch that the means and object of salvation had not changed from the Old Testament. It was by faith in the resurrected Jesus Christ. In Acts 15:15,16 Paul taught the Jews that the Church was prophesied in the Old Testament. See also Acts 23:5.
“It is written” is found concerning our obtaining and walking in righteousness by faith in Romans 1:17. It is used of the fallen nature of all mankind in Romans 3:10.
It is seen again in 1 Corinthians covering many areas of our daily Christian walk (1 Corinthians 1:19,31, 2:9, 3:19, 9:9).
Galatians also builds on the Old Testament telling us “it is written” of the grace of God in the life of Abraham that Gentiles by faith would one day be part of the Abrahamic Covenant (Galatians 3:10,13, 4:22,27). See also 1 Peter 1:16).
Eternity is in Your Side
Psalm 2:1-4 tells us that the “heathen rage and plot a vain (empty) thing”, “rulers take counsel against the Lord and His anointed (the Church)”, yet “He who sits in the heavens will laugh.” How can God laugh at the mocking and ridicule of the world against the Church? God knows the end, how all His plans will come together.
The good news is so do we. We understand God’s plan and know how all will end. We can laugh inside ourselves when we hear their plans of world domination and limiting of the rights of believers in Jesus Christ. God has the final word. His word declares and guarantees it
If God’s word was the final authority for the prophets of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ Himself and the writers of the New Testament, what more do we need? We don’t try to answer the world’s wisdom with our own wisdom. We give our answers from God’s wisdom. As the Christian song says, “At the enemy’s lie, it is written I cry, over and over again.”
The two words that say it all are grace and faith. If you will notice in this well-known verse of scripture, grace comes before faith. Grace is God’s hand reaching out to you filled with “…all the things that pertain to life and godliness…” (2 Peter 1:3). Faith is our empty hand reaching out to receive what God is giving us in grace.
Read MoreGod’s Plan for Us “In Christ”
The blessings we possess at the point of salvation were provided for us before the foundation of the world. All of our blessings were planned before we were here and given to Christ. He held them for us until the day we accepted Him and were “in Christ.” He did not need redemption, eternal life, an inheritance, or glorification, we did. He was simply chosen by God as our representative.
We possess nothing on our own but share all our blessings with Christ. Only because we are “in Him” do we have any blessing from God. This is the theme of the first chapter of Ephesians. Verses 1-14 form the longest single sentence in the New Testament. Each verse tells us what God did for us before the foundation of the world. God gave them to His Son to hold until the day we became one with Him.
Ephesians 1:3 says, “…who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world…” Verse 6 “He made us accepted in the Beloved.” Verse 7, “…In Him we have redemption.” Verse 11, “…In Him also we have obtained an inheritance.”
God Planned All of This for Us Before We Were Created
In the Garden of Eden, God created and made everything in six days and then made man at the end of the sixth day. Everything was made and prepared for man before he was ever placed in the Garden. Man could not add one thing to God’s completed plan. This is grace.
You are probably wondering why God did not make man first or at least before the last day. It was so man could not help. Grace is God creating a perfect plan and faith is man receiving that perfect plan. God anticipated every need man could have before putting him on earth. Long before man ever faced a problem, God made every answer.
God’s Redemption Plan Was Complete Before the World’s Foundation
It is the same with redemption. Millions of years before Lucifer or Adam fell, God planned every answer for every problem. God was not taken by surprise when His highest-ranking angel fell and became Satan. He was not surprised when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit. God cannot be surprised. He knows everything. He is omniscient. Because He is omniscient, He created a plan for every sin and failing of angels or man.
Once Jesus went to the cross and accomplished God’s plan for man’s redemption, He will never have to go back to the cross to redeem us from a sin God did not know about, forget or anticipate. “Christ dies no more” (Romans 6:9). God’s plan was and is complete. What has happened to us since we believed on Christ, what happens to us daily and what will happen to us into our future and eternity is already complete.
In fact, God sees His plan as complete in our life no matter how far from now it is. God is assured today we will be with Him and Jesus in heaven ten million years from now. In fact, He saw us “in Christ”, equipped for every problem and obstacle we would ever face before He created anything, including angels, heaven, earth, Adam or us. Every plan God had for angels, Satan, Adam, or us was based on His foreknowledge. Because He knew what would happen, He made His plans. Nothing can happen to us God has not already foreseen and planned for. Before temptations came, God made a way of escape. Our answers were here before our problems existed. And, our problems are temporary. Our answers are eternal.
I Am Already Glorified
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He predestined, them He also called; whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” (Romans 8:29, 30)
It is called “predestination” because all of God’s answers for my life are based on His foreknowledge. His plan for my destiny was created before the foundation of the world. God not only knew I would receive His Son, Jesus, He foresaw it happen and planned for success in my life every day. This is also why he chose or “elected” me (1 Peter 1:2). He chose me because He knew I would choose Him.
According to our verse here in Romans 8, He also saw me justified and glorified. I am presently justified, but glorification is yet to come. Yet, glorification, like all the other blessings listed, is in the past tense. God already sees me glorified and has since His plan was created. My resurrection body and home in heaven for eternity is more than a guarantee, it is an accomplished fact. So much so, that God already sees me in heaven now. Because I am in Christ, I can be just as sure I will be in Heaven as I am sure Jesus is already there.
Because of God’s foreknowledge and eternally settled plan, it was possible for God to tell Old Testament saints their sins were remitted before Jesus had come to die and bring them salvation.
“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:7)
Everything in all these verses comes to us from God’s grace including glorification, our resurrection body. We cannot even imagine God’s grace. We can only accept it.
God’s Plan for Eternity Brings Us Comfort Today
Romans 8:30 does not say, “He will glorify those He has justified.” But it says, “Whom He has justified (past tense), them He also glorified (past tense).”
We do not have to live our life wondering if God will keep His word. He has not only accomplished what He has given to us but also what will be given.
Again, because we are in Christ and Christ is in heaven, we can be just as sure we will be in Heaven as we are sure Jesus is already there.
How does this bring comfort to us today? If God sees me already in heaven and in a resurrection body, then I must be going to make it through my present problem. In fact, I will not only make it through this problem, but everyone after this. If God sees me past the finish line, that’s how I need to see myself.
What Does A Redeemed Body Look Like?
John says, “…it has not yet been revealed what we shall be” (1 John 3:2). You cannot look at your present body and even imagine what your resurrection body will be like. Many who saw Jesus after His resurrection did not recognize Him immediately. By looking at scripture we can see glimpses of our resurrection body. “So is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body (us) and there is a spiritual body (Jesus). (1 Corinthians 15:42-44)
Our resurrection body is a reaping of a natural body sown into the dust of the ground. In every case we see our body is sown first then raised in harvest time. All believers will die, except for those living at the time of the resurrection. But we will all be harvested at the same time, at the rapture of the Church. At that time our natural body will become a spiritual body, incorruptible, glorious and powerful. It will permanently replace our physical body. Though it is presently made of unredeemed and cursed dust, it is still the temple of the Holy Spirit.
A Unique Position
In Resurrection, we will be given a unique position higher than Old Testament saints. No man or angel has ever had a position like we will have in eternity. The Church Age is unique to all ages before it. We live in a time the prophets could only see glimpses of and angels desire to see and understand what we know and often take for granted.
You have made him a little lower than the angels, You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish that pass through the paths of the seas (Psalm 8:5-8). According to Psalm 8, Adam was a creation unlike anything before him with a unique position under God, over angels and over creation.
Our glorified state will be greater than that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It will also be greater than any Old Testament saint. Even the greatest of the prophets were servants in God’s house. But Jesus and those who are born again are sons in God’s house (Hebrews 3:5,6).
Adam and Eve were never family, but servants in the house of God. They were not, and are not, seated with God on His throne. Adam and Eve were never “in Christ”.
All Old Testament saints were forgiven of their sins and accounted righteous, but never “made the righteousness of God in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
