It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2

Archive for February, 2024

The Prayer of Salvation and Making Jesus Our Savior  

Salvation is God’s gift to all humanity in allowing us another chance to be redeemed from our disobedience, our curse and our rebellious acts with the fall of mankind.  Salvation is a gift, no one can earn it or deserves it, but they can choose to accept or refused it. God has given us the simple act of the prayer of faith in His Son Jesus, to be rescued and delivered from sin and given eternal salvation. 

 This process may be simple but yet, it has a great, profound and overwhelming effect on our lives, our character and the people we influence.  The prayer of salvation is praying to God, asking for the forgiveness of our sins, because we believe in the blood, the death and the resurrection for the debt that Jesus paid for us on the cross.  By asking Jesus to come into our livesand to be our Lord and Savior our souls are save for eternity. 

 We are shown this process in the book of Romans. This is the prayer of faith and how we can become children of the Most-High God and be in the family and household of God. With our body we confess with our mouth Jesus is Lord over our lives and with our soul we believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead. Then the Holy Spirit comes and our spirit is made alive and we are made righteous by the Holy Spirit of God. 

Romans 10: 9-10 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. NKJ 

 Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.  NKJ 

Ephesians 2:19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. NKJ 

 God created us as a tri-part being; body, soul and spirit. We have a natural body created from the earth.  Oursoul, is our personality, character, intellect and will. It is our soul that gives us our individuality, it is our God given ability to choose our path in life and how we will develop our character, be it right or wrong.  

 Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. NKJ 

 Death can have two meanings; one is that a thing ceases to exist in its natural form and another is that there is a separation from the life-giving source that a thing needs to continue to exist in its current form.  When God created mankind, He breathed into themHis God like spirit and they became a living being with a soul and an eternal spirit like God, which will never cease to exist. 

 The day they rebelled against God and disobeyed His command, their God like spirit left the natural body and the man, as God had created him, no longer existed.  Their God likeness, His Shekinah Glory that shined bright all over them, their God like spirit, leftthem that day and their nakedness was revealed. Man as God had created and made him originally, died that day with the separation of the Spirit leaving mankind with just his body and soul. The body of mankind will later die when the soul returns to its source and maker.

Genesis 3: Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. 

 Through the confession and the prayer of faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit of God will come back into our hearts and our God given spirit will be born again. We can once again turn from death, to life everlasting and no longer be counted as one of the “living dead.”  The living dead are those whose body and soul is alive and functioning but their spirit is dead to the things of God. This is what Jesus meant when He said, let the dead bury their dead. He was speaking of those whose spirit was dead and not alive in Christ. 

 Matthew 8:22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” NKJ 

 John 20:22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. NKJ  

 God has given us the simple process to be saved, the ABC salvation; Admit, Believe and Confess which involves mankind as the tri-part being, body, soul and spirit. 

 Admit and say with our mouth, (which involve our body) that we are sinners in need of a Savior.

Believe in our heart, (which is our soul) that Jesus gave His blood, died on the cross and was raised again to pay our sin debt.

Confess that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior and there by receive the Holy Spirit (where by our spirit is reborn) to become a new creation in the family of God. 

 2Chorinthains 5:17-19 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. NKJ

 It is no longer the things we do, or do not do, but the choices we make for our lives and our future, that is our will. When we choose Jesus, and through the prayer of faith receive Him as our Lord, the righteousness of Christ will put us into a right standing with God and in His family. 

 God has given every person a free will to choose their path in life and who they will serve.  We are free to choose but we are not free from the consequences of our choices. We have been told to choose this day whom we will serve.

Joshua 24:14-15 “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the Riverand in Egypt. Serve the Lord!   And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”NKJ

A seed that is planted in the soil is hidden from our eyes and though we cannot see the growth that is taking place in the soil, in time we will see the transformation of that seed, the growth and the fruit that is produced. This is much like the process of us being born again with the seed of God planted in our spirit though me may not see the growth immediately over time we will see a transformation. 

 We should be mindful of what seeds we are planting and thereby what crop we will be gathering. 

 When we truly believe and pray this prayer of faith, we can be sure that we are saved, by faith in God’s word. God’s word is our assurance and not our works, and by God’s promise we know that we are in the family and household of God.

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 The Awesome Love of God                        

Love is truly the one universal language. The expression of Love is understood no matter what country, culture or dialect it may be, and every people group has a way of expressing their love to others. The ability to know love is an awesome gift from God.  Natural love is something that is shared, imparted and communicated not only to those who are in love but it is also felt by the people around them. But, through of the power of the Holy Spirit God has given us a supernatural love and by this Spirit we have the ability to love others as God has loved us. 

1 John 4:12-16 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.  By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.  And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.  And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. NKJ

This love that we experience and share is the expression of the character of God Himself. God who is the total embodiment, picture and example of love, gave us the ability to show love, tobe loved, and to comprehend the love of others.

This is such a gracious gift from God, He could have made us without emotions and without the ability to express and experience love. But God in His awesome love and great compassion for us, gave us the capacity to know the natural love of humanity and through the power of the Holy Spirit we have the ability to display and show the supernatural love of God to others. Just as He has loved His creation and His people, we too have this ability to love others as He has loved us. 

John 3:16-17 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. NK

2 Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. NKJ

God saw the depravity of fallen mankind and the hopelessness of our lost state. His great compassion recognized our need to be saved from eternal destruction.  Because of God’s awesome Love for humanity, He gave His best and sent His only begotten Son, Jesus. Jesus came into the world to seek and to save those who would come to believe through faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.  

1 John 4:7-11 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.   In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.NKJ

We can see and observe the natural love a parent has for a child or child for a parent. We can feel the love intuitively, or just through the absorption of feelings of the love between a beloved and their cherished one. That is why we like to read novels and watch movies about the simple interaction of love,which is expressed from one person to another and this is a gift from God. 

Jude 1:21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. NKJ

Again, just as we are able to communicate love to others in our natural state, God has given us the ability to show the supernatural love of God to others through the power of the Holy Spirit. The supernatural love of God transcends and surpasses natural attachments and bonds. God’s Holy Spiritliving in us knits His love in our hearts for others, that they may know and see His love for them through us.

Colossians 2:2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, NKJ

Galatians 2:20 have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me  NKJ

As we grow in our knowledge of God and His love for us, God’s love is rooted in us and flows through us and spreads abroad.  

1 Thessalonians 1:3 remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father, NKJ

Romans 5:5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. NKJ

Out of the love God has for us, Jesus came and fulfilled the law of God in the Old Testament and paid all the sin debt that we owed because of our rebellion against God. And in the New Testament Jesus has given us this commandment, to love one another as He has loved us. That is selflessly and generously, putting the welfare of others before ourselves.  

John 15: 12-13This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. NKJ

In showing the awesomeness of God’s love;

We are to reveal the love of God to others.

We are to reflect the glory of God in the earth.

We are to resemble the character and likeness of God in our daily lives.

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