Anstey Jeremiah

Paul calls out Peter mainly because of the damage/ confusion that was being perpetrated in the gentile world. Peter was personally schooled by God and should have known better. It seems at times that Peter still held on the fact that he can work by himself forgetting the fact that he had the Power of Jesus within him who would be with him always.. Peter it seems had forgotten that he was in charge of the Lord's flock and should not have been scared of anyone. the central issue I believe is that salvation is for all and this was a time in faith in Jesus not the works of the Law it was important because the Judaizers were zealous in their commitment, but as Paul put it to them in the letter to the Romans, 'they were zealous without (correct) knowledge and would have brought a serious stifling to the spread of the Gospel with Syncretism.

We christians Struggle because our mentality is that we still think that we must actually physically "see" even a little bit, of God and him working in us and for us; that is despite knowing that faith is a total belief system. We fail to understand that . God does most of His work providentially (eve though miracles look instant) and miracles take time. God as proven in the OT always prepares his prophet and Seers, allowing them to persevere over trials by maturing in the Holy Spirit. So today we must develop Patience and endure until God puts us fully into ministry. The spirit of God cannot help us until we seek God for wisdom through Knowledge and this is vital to our spiritual maturing. we must submit ourselves to Him and to The Word through the word of God if we are to show others how Grace works in our lives and the Kingdom.

I am confused, no evidence was shown in the lesson aboutAbraham as a moon worshipper. yet I know that his father worshipped other Gods (Jos 24:2). The context of the two scriptures does nothing for the question. but to answer the question; Abraham believe God and trusted that God would keep his promises. A person can be righteous by faith by believing the Gospel and baptizing in the name of the Godhead and obeying the statutes of God as written in his word.

Well, God already told Paul that he would be instructed of what to dominate Damascus. And in true Godly style, he keeps the Prophecy/ promise/ revelation event active, confirming to Paul, that he is truly God by allowing to have visions of Ananias coming to Him. Ananias, probably having the first encounter with the Lord, himself, understanding the zealousness of Paul, probably remembers the proverbs of the dog and his vomit and the pig and his mud, not quite acquesing The power of God ,maybe just spoke a little too quickly. It takes courage to obey because what we are asked to do may sound difficult, impossible, unachievable; but nothing is impossible with God. Ananias puts away his doubts and his questioning nature , and I guess, hope that his approach to Paul is just as he (Paul) visions it. Probably ! Probably!

Avoiding or trying to avoid the sins of ones culture and traditions means one has to be ready to walk alone, even brethren think you're wacky and pretend pious. Culture and tradition is the biggest threat to the Church or at least one of the biggest and leads to a sort of syncretism, sadly some Christians are not aware. There should be no cultural/traditional adjectives before the word Christian to describe brethren. Studying/readying the word of God would help us to know God and thus really worship Him in spirit and in truth. We will also come to realize that as Paul says " it's the grace of God" that allows us to do things in His name and get strength to endure. The enemy, the accuser, wants us to believe God's grace has a limit and that we can overuse it but it's the only way forward, for we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, even in Christ.

I don't know what you mean by uncommitted people but I think the real threat are those who are committed. Committed that God should no longer be the one who adds to the church. Committed that God is not doing a very good job. Committed that In comparison with other churches, God is making them look real bad. Maybe we should do like them and add them our way. You know, hold a few financial seminars, have any kind of sessions that youths would like . In other words seduce the community into coming close enough to get them in the church.

I think my prayer life needs work and every time I remember that it's not what it's suppose to be, I get a little frustrated. I wonder also about my fruit of the Spirit, am I maturing or am I getting puffed up and am I using comparison to determine my maturity. You know you might be as zealous and faithful as you can be and definitely more zealous than most, but by God's standards, you wonder , do I measure up? I don't like walking alone with my convictions, it makes me feel that sometimes everybody else is right and I'm wrong.

There may be many answers to that question. The foremost on my mind is that they don't realize that they were the "baskets of good figs", Jer 24:3-7; rather they focused on the wrath of God and would not risk having going through that again. I think also that they believe that God would only be that way in Israel and they would be safe in captivity. There are also those who would have been born or have children born in captivity and believe or were convinced that captivity is the end of all things and may have no desire to continue to worship God. Some may have been thinking that they can contribute to the return and worship from afar. The situation is no different today; some want no part of Jesus's crosses; some want no part of His promise of tribulation; those who are comfortable with the status that their cultures and traditions afford will not think of changing their religion; like some of the exiles who think that captivity means the ends, there are those who think, when your dead you're dead. My biggest reason though, I think, is that people cannot wrap their heads around eternal separation or the consequence of eternal separation from God.

First we should acknowledge that trying to look your best does not or should not mean drawing attention to yourself. As one preacher would say " if your pretty outside and ugly inside, that just makes you pretty ugly." One could be well dressed and handsome or extremely pretty but if Nothing (no opinions), lawlessness or garbage comes out your mouth or your actions do not show modestly, you might as well be the vilest of all mankind. On the other hand you must be reminded that God is Holy and loves glory and beauty (Ex 28:40; 1 Ch 16:29) and there is a growing trend, that our heart is what is important in appearing before Him on the Lord's day, meaning we put on any old thing, things that we would not appear before our Governor (Mal 1:8) or people we consider important, or for a secular function. But does our heart action God's reverence or holiness? One thing the old people had right with respect to dressing on the Lord's day was their Sunday best or their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, even if they were in error about some things. we need also to remember that Sunday is from midnight to midnight. If we cannot find out who did away with that practice then we need to go back to that. Then again that's only my opinion

Simply put, we follow the world, and the world tells us we don't have to take anything from any body if we don't feel like it. The world tells us that there is a way out of marriage and when we believe that, we don't have to work hard at it. Even if the word submission or it's meaning is obscure in English, Christ gave it measure in Eph 5:22 "as to the Lord". There must be no presumptions, no pre-meditation about marriage except that it is a journey and not a destination. Most men even Christians don't appreciate what being head of the home means. I chose the word appreciate over know or understand because it is convenient to twist the meaning when each wants their own way. But not understanding what head of the home means makes an instant rebel ( or later) of a wife. We have to learn that sometimes puts a smarter, wiser, person in our life, so that we can learn all the fruit of the spirit as part of our, molding , or refining or our pruning. Finally we don't make the connection to two becoming one; a husband and a wife were not made to stand as two individual forces, but one and, should not try to live their lives as two individual but one collective force. Children go astray or maybe test you as soon as they detect that you are not united in judgement viz mummy would appprove of something that daddy normally wouldn't. Should I walk away or stay silent? When I was in the world that was an fair enough easy question. I would voice my opinion and sometimes I would be silent or silently arrogant or walk away. But having to deal with brethren now is most difficult because no matter how I deal with it, I walk away in sin. Most of my life I've had to walk alone in my convictions and today I don't know how to feel about brethren who does not in my "judgement" does not have zeal for the Lord or the house of the Lord. It's a work in progress. Submission is wrong, when you put anyone or anything before Christ

I guess the same reason why Saul failed God; we despise or do not trust the word of God. Despite being renewed (both us and Saul) we do not fully appreciate God's anointing of a clean (new) heart through the Holy Spirit. Figuratively speaking , while we cannot fake death, we somehow fail to realize we were to throw out our old selves and rely on our new self, and even if that happens over time, and we mature in Christ, in the end we forget to throw out our old self, which remains in the background, silently influencing our decisions and choices.. How must we deal with sin? Trust God to deliver on His promises and let His Spirit burnt like a blazing fire in our souls through the word of God and prayer (or vice-versa). While we do that we access God's grace into spiritual maturity, meaning that we get a fresh cross daily and leave it at His ( paid up) cross and follow His commands and precepts. Peractically speaking we can let go of sin by giving up pride, ego and prestige and trust God's word as we know it and truly love our neighbour's as ourselves

That even now, in this time, I could reduce His pain on the cross (even though it's in my past) by being obedient to His command and not sin. I know that's a complex answer but it's how I feel.

Two things make me feel like I'm worth nothing, when I let my old self visit and when I feel like everybody else seems to be right and I am wrong and self righteous.; those are my thorns in my side. I still go through the motion of asking God to help me with this and also the motions of confessing my sins since I even, knows His grace is sufficient. When I think of how much grace I have accessed, it boggles my mind. But I often tell people as long as you are alive don't be burdened by old sins, they really slow you down, confess nyour sins every day for the minimum, you don't know how many times you sin each day and you don't want the time between confessing and the second coming to be too long or you may find your body not ascending. Well I've never said it that way but I always tell them use the grace, God will know our battle and whether you are sinning so that grace may abound

Judging is not just a touchy issue it's a difficult issue. Most times people who are upset about judging knows that they are in the wrong and just don't like anyone to bring it to their or other people's attention. Remember if you see someone doing something against the word of God and you talks about it, to me that is not judging but one has to be careful not to associate that sin with any other sin, then that will be judging. Judging is like the wind, it goes where it wants, you can't control it. And we hve to be careful because we don't know if someone is constantly battling some serious temptation and continues to confess their sin. We must always consider the final judgement when we spread the good news and continue to us it as a guide to heaven' people must be given all the consequences of obeying or disobeying the good news as it is a necessary guide to staying in Christ

God's holiness is defined by the fact that He cannot sin, He does not like sin or to be around sin; He cannot lie , He does not lie, He keeps all covenants and promises, what He says he does; He cannot deny Himself and He cannot go against His will or His nature. He has given us the opportunity to change our ways by bringing us first to a sinless state, sanctified, through Christ, we have to try and maintain that state. But He knows we are flesh so He backed up our inability to be sinless by allowing us to consistently repent and confess our sins. We have to remember to continue to use this "facility", grace if you like, so that the thing that separates us from Him would not be around or a bare minimum, keeping Him in our sphere. So holiness or for us to be Holy means, do not sin, keep away from sin. Let your yes be yes and your no be no, no matter the consequences. You are a child of God, live that, do not deny that or by extension Him, live according to how he lived. Let the Spirit of God guide us' choose good over evil, light over darkness, truth over error or truth over lie. We are sanctified today because we chose to walk in Christ who have given His Spirit as a seal. Christ was able to finish Hiswork before going to heaven, we should be able to hear the still small voice of the Spirit before doing the same, at least this is my wish, through my obedience of course. Christ was also able to finish by doing all that the Father ask Him /told Him go do. We need to heed the word of God and action it o be Holy as He is Holy.

The basis of human joy that is inexpressible is knowing that you judged yourself harshly wondering if you are going to make the grade, if you made someone turn away, if you miss an opportunity to help bring someone to repentance and while you're even thinking that, Jesus looks at you and say most simply and most pleasantly, "well done my good and faithful servant" and you realize that you made the right choice. How I would feel then can be described as inexpressible. 'Human emotions would always come to play especially if you feel you didn't rightly divide the hard passages of Paul, Solomon (Eccl) and John (Rev) or you rebelled against the interpretation of the 'scholars and commentators', only to have Jesus vindicate you by calling you brother. For me, the pursuit of happiness is to be Holy as He is Holy and if to die to die, in Christ. I want to follow allHis ways yet sometimes I feel that those in the Church are more a hindrance to me than those outside the Church and my emotional love thus, I think, affects my agape love and sometimes I think myself a pretender. Thanks be to God for His abundant Grace. i get real joy when I see God's work in the life of all the saints especially mine.

I was in places where I thought that I would come to nothing in this world, I was in places where I thought that I could escape only through death, mostly my own, I was in a situation where all the world thought I was guilty when I was innocent. But thanks be to God, He rescued me a couple of times and in the last time I held on to Him. I learnt the meaning of "His grace is sufficient", I learnt patience and forgiveness and I developed zeal for His house. Since that last time I try not to live by bread alone, but by every inspired word. Genuine tested faith first of all proves that Christ is real, His word and promises are true, without His guarantee we would have no hope in this life. When we do the things that we're considered impossible, difficult or costly in terms of times and resources, we have no choice but to attribute them to divine intervention, that is Christ

God's part is to help us endure the tribulations that come through the flesh, give us His peace, hope of the eternal blessings and hedge us from those unseen forces who use other flesh to try us. We have to obedient, repentant and love our neighbour as ourselves

Obedience and sprinkling is held together by a powerful bond called repentance; you cannot be obedient if you are not repentant for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. You cannot be forgiven if you did not repent, thus no access to the blood of Christ. You can fool men into believing that you are being sprinkled or being obedient but God knows your heart, the place where you show repentance. Saying that we are saved by Grace is a correct but primary statement. Our acces to grace is free gift form the Father and Son , well the actions of both the father and son; and we must follow suit. The father says He loves us and wants to save us: His action was to send His Son; the Son said he would do it; His action was to die on the cross for us, making Grace available. If we say we want it, then we have to be obedient and access the grace and then walk in the footsteps, statues and precepts of Christ; be Holy as he is holy. While grace is always available, to access it repentance and obedience has to be its constant partners.

Jer 29:7 says to seek the peace wherein Ihave sent you captive and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you would have peace. Apart from the confusion of being called captive, A Christian should be guided by the fact that it is not what the city can do for you, but what you can do for it. Some tend to get caught up with the culture but really what we should pay attention to is what is lawful and thus what is expedient (1 Cor 10:23); at the same time we must not mistake trends for custom. You can never know if a trend or custom is related to idolatry and thus you must be Christian first or rather walking the Christian way seemingly so that God can call those who wish to respond to the gospel which you will expose them too. Thus knowing the scriptures is the answer to any challenge of location change' in this case I remembered this scripture from Jeremiah to deal with such things for somebody it might be something else.

I can site two biblical scriptures or maybe three to clear up the story of Cain and Abel; Heb. 11:4 says by faith Abel's sacrifice was better. scripture says "faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God - indicating that They were told/taught how to worship God properly, it stands to reason that Cain did not do as told. Secondly Gen 4:3-5 said while Abel offered some of the firstborn of his flock (with the emphasis on first), Cain offered some fruits (not first fruits) which is unacceptable in the sight of God. when we combine all these scriptures we get at least biblical explanation for Cain's actions and behavior. God also gave Cain the opportunity to do better viz. he extended grace to Cain so that He could do better. history I believe has recorded that Roman society resented Christians when they realized that Christians were changing their behavior, not taking part in their orgies and their hedonistic lifestyles. They took offense as to how this made them look. It's the same in the world today; Non-Christians and even those who struggle with Christianity resents faithful Christians only because it makes them look like heathens and shows up their unbelief, in turn they respond by persecution. Psalm 50:16-22 describes them and the situation correctly.

Let me answer the last question first. There must be someone and some thing and some where in this world or beyond, that is pure, holy, unblemished, someone , somewhere that would allows to know that we can choose to be like Him or be opposite. God is that one person and heaven is that place where we can choose to be as our final and eternal home or rest, away from sin. God's glory is His way of confirming His presence, confirming His responsibility for whatever is happening. Our response to His glory either way results in God's judgement; either we take positive direction from this or face whatever God decides at that point in time. We must remember that God is not just everywhere but every time and He knows whose name would not appear in the book of life, even though mankind cannot discern that. God have the decision to give you up to your depravity, use you to make a point to others.

I can identify with Moses wanting to see God's glory. I was a newbie on anew project and every time there was a shutdown I would do some readup and give a answer as what I think was the problem and was wrong each time. But some experts were always right without reading up. I would wonder who are these guys that always seem to have the right answer? I always wanted to know what they know, why were they always right. I wish I could dissect them and learn their secret. I guess Moses felt the same way about God, he wanted to know what makes God tick? how is it that he knows everything? How is it that I can't seem to please Him? You know what, if only I can see Him I will understand Him better, I probably be able to discern how he thinks. It's just a desire to be just like Him. It's the same with Paul; if I'm like Him, it cuts out all the disappointments that my fleshly self would incur. My need to pleas/ appease Him is important. Whatever He/Christ wants, I want to help Him achieve it. I have this hunger in me that says that if there are no more revelations to come regarding bringing all men to repentance, then God can squeeze me in as one of His secrets (Deut 29:29). I'm afraid that I may not in this life understand difficult books, passages or verses, so I read my bible daily hoping that I can truly understand what is God's will for me and mankind and how I can do His will.

We are to believe men who saw and heard and handled Jesus Christ. Believe men who watched the Messiah manifest, truth, love and obedience to the fatherMost importantly John taught: love is the opposite of hate. This love he talks about known in the Greek language (score on for the Hellenists) as agape is not an emotion, it is an unselfish, unconditional love that has been given measure by God that goes beyond words it manifests itself in actions of love and is connected to truth; 1 Jn 3:18. Believe John echoing and endorsing Simon Peter – 2 Peter 1:16 “ For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty”. Peter, James and John hears the prophetic word confirmed on a mountain that Jesus was God’s beloved son – Matthew 17:5- “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him”. John has captured and (further) solidifies this truth in his gospel that Jesus whom he identifies in 1Jn 1:1 as the “Word of Life” and in verse 1 Jn 1:3 as the “Son of God”, was in the beginning with God and is God – Jn 1:1. we must know for sure, If a man gets it wrong about Jesus then he gets it wrong about God – because Jesus is the final, complete and perfect manifestation and revelation of God, to men. Jesus himself says so in response to a request -John 14:9 9Jesus saith unto him, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. To close I'd like to give a few more scriptures to escape those grey areas 1 Jn 2:10; 3:11 1Jn 2:2; 3:7; 2 Jn 1:6

Confession is the action of allowing God to determine if what you know about yourself with regard to sin is the same thing he sees in your heart. If there is equality in what he sees and what you confess, then for sure He knows that you don't think you can hide anything from Him and the blood of Jesus covers you. this gives a good indication of a repentant heart and that you don't want any part of darkness or lawlessness. Forgiveness of sins eventually cause us to be more dependent on the Spirit of God to guide us in our daily lives even as we flee from the temptations of the devil. Knowing that we are striving more to follow the precepts/footsteps of Christ, we don not allow to weight of sin through repentance to keep us back from the works of righteousness. forgiveness of sins if our heart is right will eventually lead to us being cleansed of a particular sin and thus eventually most sins but being flesh, we must always depend on the blood of Jesus until he comes again