Rob Mc.

I don’t believe that you can remain a closed wallet, heart, mind or soul once you have receive the Grace of God. If you TRULY believe in the new spirit inside you, you can’t help but be generous. Not just generous with money, but with your time, your empathy, your compassion and your joy. Now if you accept Jesus Christ, but your faith remains weak, you may be tight with your gifts in the beginning. But as your faith and spirit grow, so will your generosity. The relationship of forgiving and giving falls along a razor’s edge. God gave us the ultimate gift, that one man should lay down his life for another. God gave us Jesus, and Jesus gave his life for us. A human act tying together forgiveness, the anointment, and the gift of grace from God. For Him (Jesus) he was resurrected, as proclaimed by the prophets. For us, it would be the final human act, because we are no more in the flesh and so we can no longer do any physical act for someone else.

I will put Compassion and Humility as the characteristics that I hope to have in my heart when I am in front of someone that needs to hear about Jesus Christ. I must be humble, taking the lower position and managing the conversation, so that the person’s defenses won’t rise up and shut down the conversation. If I’m speaking to someone, I probably have some idea of who they are, so my heart should also fill with compassion for them. I know where I will be for eternity. Can I now use this opportunity to plant a seed that might germinate, giving God a chance to open their eyes and soften their hearts. As for guidelines for ANY conversation, try to live by Luke 6:45: “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” If you approach the moment with love and grace, you will feel the good in you, and your mouth will speak what your heart holds dear. As for the last point, do NOT behave like most of the current group of leaders in this world. Many are evil, most are liars and all are greedy. They routinely place their personal gain and self-promotion above their responsibility to care for/care about the people they are responsible for. Each week the global situation gets worse. This is not the forum to go any deeper into the current state of affairs, so I won’t.

Ethical behavior says do this certain thing because it is expected of you, whether in “normal” society, or in your church. Chair the committee, drive the carpool an extra week, lead the bible study, host the post-service refreshments. Conversely, grace fills us with the spirit, with the charity to respond to someone that did us wrong (in word or action), in a way that comes from Love, not reciprocity or vengeance. You’re waiting for that last open parking spot at the grocery store, the car begins to pull out and then the passenger leaves the empty cart in the open spot. You begin to roll down your window, and your hand perches above the horn (behavior of the flesh). Then you stop, grace floods over you, and instead, you get out of YOUR CAR and move the cart, not only away from the open spot, but back to the cart return. Congratulations, you just passed a grace test! Begin looking for more opportunities because they abound. Jesus does not want us to respond with “an eye for an eye” retaliation. Jesus teaches us to not respond in kind, but rather do something positive for the person (or in the situation) that comes from love and is in you already because of God’s grace. Do not use evil to fight evil but use good to overcome evil. As He states, feed him if he is hungry, give him something to drink if he is thirsty. Any revenge that may be necessary will come from God, at the right time and in the right situation.

Out and about, versus stay home and pout! Which Christian are you? Though you may have a spiritual gift, or even two, those alone cannot complete the mission that Christians are given by God. It takes the whole body, working together to achieve what we are ordained to do. If we stay home, sure, we can post great religious verses and stories on social media. But as you know, most fall flat and most people just scroll by. There is no IMPACT. But when you are “face to face” with others in the body of the church, all of your senses come in to play: you see, you hear, you speak, you listen, and you act! Fervor feeds off of others; you can’t get that feeling from a TV preacher sitting alone in your living room. You are only receiving the scripted/edited portions of the message (plus a lot of crowd shots to show great attendance for this preacher). You can’t nod to your neighbor in the pew next to you when a salient point hits home. You can’t sing in harmony with the rest of the congregation during one of your favorite hymns. You can’t FEEL the experience, which is a shame because that’s how Jesus came across throughout His teachings. Read in the bible and see the positive emotions (from His disciples) and negative emotions (from the Pharisees/Sadducees) that are in response to when Jesus speaks. Please continue to search for that anointed body of people (a church) that you can spend some time with. It will change you! Just being with like-minded people that understand can alter your life.

As stewards, we don’t own the property entrusted to us. It belongs to another (in this case, God). Our job is to receive the responsibility of doing what is best with that which is given to us. As stewards, we are entitled to a small portion, as compensation for our work. The bulk of the provenance must be utilized as God directs; in most cases we are to use the property, gifts, and benefits to share the word of God and bring others into the Kingdom. As heirs to the kingdom, we have received, through grace, certain gifts from those available to the family of the creation. So, whether we can prophesy, encourage, teach, give or something else, we are to use these gifts to the best of our abilities, giving God the credit, and not boasting that it is by our works that we accomplish these things.

You can have one or more of the gifts that Paul discusses, you can even have love in your heart, but if these gifts are not anchored by God’s grace, they will not stick. When you try to use your gift(s), they will fall flat. The Holy Spirit will not provide the Words when you need them. Your light will burn dimly, as if in a clay jar. Your face will not glow with the Love of God. People will look at you and wonder about your intent. Remember, God’s grace comes to you in abundance. There is extra that flows through you and out into your surrounds. If grace is not in you, grace cannot come through you. A generous person puts love of others above love of self. Their chief characteristic is having and maintaining the role of servant. The generous person gives from sacrifice, not from abundance. Think of the woman with the two small copper coins. She gave everything with her offering, “…all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:42-44) When you “wake up” and realize that you have been given a particular spiritual gift, you must know that you only have that gift because God gave it to you. Your free will would rather move towards carnal pleasures, but the POWER that comes with God’s grace gives you the POWER to fight the carnal body and instead embrace the spirit, and with that, the spiritual gifts.

When we are humanly healthy, carnally satisfied, and in good earthly spirits, we Fight and we Fight, and we Fight to do everything ourselves. That’s what makes us successful humans. Ask anybody! We Forget about God and the covenant He’s made with each of us. We revert to the human-centric vision every time. Ah… but when we are hurting. Then, we become weak. We no longer want to fight. We FINALLY give in. We turn to God in our time of need (again!) and realize that we require His grace, His mercy, His help. We CANNOT fight the battle alone. It is when we finally hand over our cares to God that we start to receive results. I truly believe there are no “practical limits” on God’s grace. He is infinite, omnipresent, all powerful. He, through His Love, will supply a continuous flow of Grace and Mercy to us, resulting in a spiritual success, versus the human success we were trying to achieve. Now, if we could only remember for the next time…

In the times that our bodies are normal (we are in good health), we are open to seeing what is around us. We easily look outside ourselves and are open to “it’s Not about Me”). We can walk like Christ, being gentle, humble, giving and readily willing to sacrifice. But… when we are ailing, we suddenly become a member of the “woe is me” segment of society. Our focus turns internal. We now want (need?) attention from others. We don’t feel good, we hurt, we crave relief, we want nursing back to health. In our heads we say, “How can I think about or do for others when I hurt so badly myself. I want to be humble; I want to be giving and I would sacrifice my time to help others, but I CAN’T!” I need healing. I don’t think temptation is a part of the decision not to help others. I believe that it is human nature to focus inward (revert to self) when any type of affliction attacks us. I do agree that as Christians, we will fight harder to stay on point with Christ, still looking to serve. But depending on the affliction, human frailty may win out and we will fail this test. All we can do is pray, ask forgiveness, and look forward to a better result next time we are tested.

Approaching God's holy throne in prayer is intimidating because of the fear. Fear that we are still seen as sinners, fear that we are not “good enough” for God, fear that we will fail at what it is we are trying to do, and fear that we will be seen as greedy, if we ask for God to intercede on our behalf. Being judged as not good enough is a human frailty. I don’t think it’s the condemnation that we fear as much as the carnal fear of embarrassment if we fail (or do not appear sincere enough). All grace comes from God. Most think that the amount of grace that God provides is just enough for us. What we need to learn, understand, and act on is the fact that God’s grace abounds abundantly, and excess grace is given to us; given because we need to share that excess through graceful acts of our own. We should walk with our eyes open, looking for opportunities to do “random acts of kindness.” Sharing is caring, and the rewards to the giver most times far exceed the grace received by the recipient. Next time you surprise someone with a selfless act, watch their eyes. Seeing their eyes light up is the reward that makes GIVING of oneself the greatest act that one person can do for another.

God is the Power. God set the Plan. God, through Grace offered us salvation and thankfully we accepted. Now God will continue to do His part, keeping us in line for sonship and an heir to His kingdom. We, however, must do our part. We must Keep Our Faith! We must believe, as we do, in Christ the man, Christ the Savior and Christ everlasting. We must live under the salvation of the blood, and his resurrection after three days.

Since it was the Father that did the predestination, the pre-selection, it is He who must “select” a person and offer them redemption. We are born sinners and have no idea about God. It takes God, working through other people (parents, relatives, friends) to show us the alternative to living in the flesh. Add in the Holy Spirit, and Christ, and IF we are called (selected) by God, there is an army working in unison under His plan to lead us to an eternal life. Once WE are saved, it is expected that we will become part of God’s human army, working with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to bring others into the flock. If you follow along with this, you can readily see that God did all the necessary preparation from the beginning. Because of sin we cannot see God’s plan; his rewards for us. Through God’s gift of grace, our eyes are opened (by the working of many as stated above). He draws us to Him; we do not make the first step. Amazing when you step back and look at the whole process.

We once again must look back to the beginning. God was bored. He had a universe, He had heavenly hosts, He had worlds to play with. Everything was RIGHT with His worlds. God needed a challenge. Think about it: He had the Word, He was the Word, but there was no one to read, listen and act on the Word. God needed something with intellect, free will, wants and needs, with a hunger for some "thing"; something which would offset the correctness of everything in front of Him at that moment. The result was Man. Man, whom God would create with the ability to think for himself. A challenge to God’s way and purpose. Someone to act on the Word. Since God IS Love, he instantaneously made a plan for His creation. He knew what the future would look like, and He needed beings to operate in his system. He needed people inside this creation tagged from every generation, having the skills to take leadership roles, servitude roles, the role of teachers, healers, prophets, encouragers and those with great generosity . With Love, he [pre] selected the individuals and assigned roles to them. He knit us together, then held us up, assigning a time and a place for our best fit into His creation (be aware that, in God's plan, our time is NOW !). He was also aware that at some point, a piece of Him (the Son) would need to go live amongst them (us). The Son would, through God’s glorious grace, course correct the creation, offering an alternate way for man to gain salvation. Salvation without the Torah sacrifices and cumbersome rules and regs that Pharisees, Saduccees and folks from other generations added to the core Ten Commandments. Salvation via grace and through faith. What a Glorious plan, and we are a part of it! Thanks be to God for his foresight and planning.

I think that the verse in Acts that you shared, "All who were appointed for eternal life believed." (Acts 13:48b) really gets to the crux of the issue. “Appointed” sort of combines the two key terms you are asking about: foreknowledge and predestine. When someone is appointed to a position, the appointment is usually based on some pre-known characteristics or traits that the person has. The organization or person making the appointment has foreknowledge about the candidate, and the candidate learned some particular skills that help him be a viable candidate for the appointment (predestination, of a sort). God created everything. He wants mankind to rule over creation. That takes a wide range of skills, attitudes, and emotional stability. One (Human) person could not be God’s appointee to manage his world. He needs many, many people from each generation to take on the leadership roles that were/are needed. So, in the beginning, along with Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Solomon, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and all the other generational leaders, you and I were also selected to be here, in this place, at this time, to take on our part. (Including you GUITAR JIM !! I cannot tell you why he brought you through the life you had, but your story will have the ending that only God can give it. Hold fast to your faith (with all you have). God loves you, he will reward you more than you can imagine, and it will be for all eternity. No suffering, no head pains, no self doubt, no heavy lifting. Just LOVE...) God’s grace brought us to Him when He called. Our faith, which He preordained in us, causes us to believe. We fight our free will and the pull of the flesh to remain His, and we can do it because His grace renews in us day after day. We also have an advocate in the Holy Spirit to help us, and our High Priest, Jesus in whose name we can pray.

Jen, I was saddened to read this segment of your post. I, too will pray for your sister-in-law, and your family. May God hold your husband in his comfort as he deals with this loss.

The ”Act” of accepting Christ is a new start, not a completed act. We are but babies in the Spirit at the time of our acceptance of Christ as our savior. We are at the beginning of a journey that will take all our human life to prepare us for our eternal life. We must show that we can be the “good and faithful servant... faithful with a few things” so that, in eternal life, we can be placed “in charge of many things.” We can “Come and share [the] master’s happiness.” [Matthew 25:21] Since these are our directions from God, the Spirit guides the work we do, helping us by teaching, testing, correcting and applauding us on our journey. A person’s life will be changed as he (or she) travels along this journey. We start as sinners; even after accepting Christ, we remain mostly sinners. We don’t change overnight. There is a goal, a finish line that lies ahead. The “crowns” Paul speaks about, if you will. But never fear, as long as you stay grounded in your faith, first reading, then learning and finally acting on what you learn in the Word, there will be growth. You will become that faithful servant. If there is no change in a person, then they have fallen away, losing their grasp on their faith. Satan has meddled in this person, gaining his attention and drawing him away from his faith. Mostly likely some worldly, carnal god has replaced the one true God. Hopefully, if this is you, you can get Satan behind you and return to God. God is always there waiting, sending His grace out in the hope that you will once again grab on. This time grab on tightly. It’s worth it!

From the book of John, chapter 16: 7-13 … Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. These revelations about the role of the Spirit are important because they define the roles of the players, and the events that are critical to the act of our salvation. In many of the instances where friends accepted Christ as their savior, it usually related to a life changing experience: the death of a friend or family member, a divorce or a relationship breakup, a severe injury, with a need to search beyond the available medical answers to improve the chances of recovery, or a negative financial event, resulting in the loss of shelter, food, automobile, etc. It was at these “low” times that friends searched for help, and since several of them are now Christians living an improved life, God must have “reached out” and drawn them to Him. Once aware of God, each followed a path where God continued to play a loving role and showered grace, resulting in a revelation and an acceptance. Finally, man’s free will remains a player in the event, because even though God sets the table, per se, the final decision to accept Him (and Christ) remains man’s.

He declares, “I am a Christian. I attend church every Sunday. I look out for others (and usually stay out of their way). I give money to the needy, well, at least I give money to some charities. I do, I’m doing, I will continue to do; see God, I am a good person. Because of what I do for myself, my family, and others, I know that I am going to heaven.” In this man’s mind he is a God supporting person and DESERVES Heaven. It is the common mindset of many, but as we know, inherently wrong. God came to Earth through His Son, Jesus Christ, He lived as a man, felt what a man feels, experienced the daily trials that man faces, and then, when he better understood the reasons why man would NEVER be successful in loving God first, He showered his love (grace) onto us. His Son gave his life, HIS LIFE for us, dying a horrible death so that we could finally have a foolproof way to get to heaven. This is Love, Grace and Salvation. "But wait," he says, "I am doing all the right things! Why isn’t that enough? I proudly do everything right, looking around to see how much more I am doing that everyone else. I give more, I pray more, I am a pillar in the community. Aren’t I the true believer and shouldn’t I automatically get into heaven?" I was raised in the Catholic church, and the two things that always puzzled me were (1) Purgatory, where you wait, and wait some more, to see if you will be granted a ticket to get into heaven, and (2) that other people could pray you into heaven, meaning by THEIR actions, you can be granted salvation. WoW!

As human beings and sinners, we are wide open to the influence of the evil one. Our pride, sinful attitude, and love of worldly things (cravings of the flesh) keep us from seeking the “rescue” that God is offering. But because of His love, God persisted in His mercy, bothering us continuously. Eventually, at least in my case, I recognized that I couldn’t finish this journey by myself. I was lacking something. My wife was a Christian when I met her, and she led me (gently at first) to the Lord. I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior in 1984, being baptized via submersion in the presence of my aunts and uncles. But not my parents, who being Roman Catholics, did not understand why my first baptism (shortly after birth) was not good enough, so would not attend this amazing event. So you see, my R. Catholic upbringing led to a woeful lack of understanding and I almost missed out on being rescued. But God wouldn't let go. I hope it is clear that God’s favor kept sending the right people to me at the “right plan” time. His grace brought me home. I am now a “handiwork” of God and thankful everyday that He chose me (as I am certain are each one of you).

Jesus is the “New” sacrifice, replacing the “Old” sacrifice of an animal with no defect. Jesus had no defects, no sin. He is/was the perfect sacrifice to the Father. As discussed in the previous question, God’s original plan, a world fathered and populated via Adam and Eve, did not work as designed because of Adam’s fall into sin. Again and again God gave great leniency to His people, hoping they would hear Him, confess, repent and come back to Him. Over and over they failed Him. Finally, God sent His only Son to earth, to live among man, call people to him and tell them about the coming kingdom of God. He took our sins and accepted the punishment to have them forgiven then, in the past and now. Jesus is the Lamb of God because he took the place of the unblemished lambs that were a regular part of the OT sacrifices for the people’s sins.

We have been redeemed because a price was paid for our redemption (but not necessarily our freedom). Through the price paid, we were transferred from ownership by Sin, to a son or daughter of God (an heir with Christ, who was the first). Which would you rather have, a life free to do what you want (live in sin and face eternal damnation), or accept the payment made for our redemption, love Christ and join Him in eternal life? Becomes easy when you write it down, read it and accept it. The Blood of Christ was the price paid, a price lovingly paid with our Lord’s pain, suffering and horrible death by crucifixion. Stop for a moment and really think about the last day of Christ (his last as a man). Are we worth what he went through? I think not: we are sinners, we are selfish, we are rarely satisfied. And yet we have been given a gift (our redemption) that makes each one of us the luckiest person on Earth, if we do what God asks: see John 6:28-29, 39-40 -- 28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

From the beginning, God wanted man to remain totally in His image and likeness. He wanted him to remain sin free, working Eden as he planned, living an abundant life, raising children and populating the planet with sin-free humans. Then the apple fell… and so did Adam (via Eve). From that point onward, via man’s free will, humans became sinners. Not just sometimes, but constantly; their (our) thoughts, actions and behaviors are driven by the flesh. What can I accomplish? What can YOU do for ME? I need this, I want this, I will get it, even if it hurts you! God knew even then that He needed a revised plan if mankind was ever going to revert to His original creation. Several times he drove Israel into situations were there was temptation, with the hope that there would be internal change, resulting in a return to Him. At first they did return to God, but eventually the desires of the flesh won out. Finally, God put “Plan Christ” into motion. The OT prophets began to receive and record the Word of God containing stories of the coming of a new King, the Last King. Hopefully THIS would prepare the world to receive His Son. Then, from the line of Abraham and David, God presented Jesus to the world, giving Mankind an error-proof way to receive His Grace, return to Him and FINALLY be the people he visualized at creation. Now the onus shifted from man to Christ, and though we remain sinners, there is a clear way back to God, and a life of eternity. We just have to believe, trust and receive. Thank God, or we would be lost forever…

In man’s eyes, you can do everything right: live right, pray right, act right, speak honestly, live righteously and love honestly, but that still won’t get you an eternal life with God. John 3:16 states clearly that God gave us his only Son; if you believe in him and the truth of His death on the cross, you will receive eternal life. Jesus selected this man to show that one might be wealthy, charismatic, religious and repentant (i.e., one who has “everything”), but it will not earn salvation. It’s not about us and what we’ve done, it’s about God and what he’s done.

The undeniable point I get every time I read this passage is that it is never to late to repent and spend eternity in heaven. Even at the last breath, if we ask God, we will receive forgiveness. Most of us have already accepted Jesus Christ as our savior and have been granted eternal life. As we live our lives, we will meet many people. Hopefully, by our actions and words we will influence some of them to turn to the Lord. These verses should direct us to never give up hope that those we care about will accept Jesus, even if it is at their last breath. Be there for them until the end.

As humans, we grow up living for the flesh. We grasp after “things,” wanting to better ourselves based on “keeping up with the Joneses.” Even after we accept Christ, we are but babies in the Word, not understanding the commitment we must make to live by Spirit and Truth. God, however, knows our heart and wants what is best for us. He allows us our time to search the world, seeing what is out there and allowing our free will to guide our lives. When we finally get hit with the truth, like the Prodigal son, God welcomes us to him with open arms. He showers Grace on us, though we have done little more than recognize our failures. We are now awake to sin and the law of the Ten Commandments. We understand the need to repent for our sins. But we do not need to earn God’s grace by actions. We are given it freely. We just need to accept it. Easy… right?

The king exhibits grace through compassion and forgiveness. He at first threatens to commit to prison the servant, his wife and his children until payment is made. The servant pleaded and begged, asking for patience and forbearance. Being moved in his heart, the king forgave the servant and cancelled his debt. Then the foolish man goes out and does the exact opposite. He withholds favor from a man who owes him just a little (in relative terms), putting him directly into prison. We know what happens next, he loses the favor that he just earned from the king. To not be hypocrites, we must forgive others for any debt that may be owed to us. If we expect God’s grace (which as we now know is favor granted without being earned) we must be quick to forgive others and “cancel” their debts. Remember, each time we pray the Lord’s prayer, we ask God to forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Let’s truly mean it next time we pray it!