Diane D.

Why do you think there are so many assurances of faith in the New Testament? After Christ's death, the situation was very dangerous for the new Christians, not only from the Romans but also from their own culture, the Jews. Leadership was threatened and imprisoned. In short, many times they were left wandering and also may have had to leave their own families and communities. Their lives were in crisis for something brand new and unfamiliar to them. It was a similar situation, I would imagine to that which the troops face when they are shipped out to a strange land with weapons and training that is unfamiliar to them. In these circumstances, we tend to rely on someone to bring us back to centre: to encourage, to correct and to sustain us. These assurances were important to keep us as well as the new believers close to God. What is your favorite promise of God's role in keeping you in Christ to the end? How does your favorite promise give you powerful assurance of salvation? There are so many! Paul's assurance to Timothy likely kept Timothy going day to day regardless of the things happening around him. Timothy's faith in the safety from God is also important. I would think for me, the statement from which all of the others flows is Philippians 1:6 …Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus". I don't have to rely on what I DO to ensure my salvation and my faith and my respectability before God. Jesus is the author and finisher of my faith. When I lay that down before God, it is up to the one who started the work to finish it as Paul states. My expectant hope and trust is that He will do this.

Our faith in God leads us to Him and His protection whereby we are sealed (2 Corinthians 1:22 (God) who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts."). Through the Holy Spirit we continue to grow and strengthen. Likewise, our faith in God enables us to reflect this in our way of living and our regard for others. ALL of this is not through our own efforts, but through the grace of God who knows us better than anyone else. He knows what we need to survive here and through eternity. I will try to explain a picture that has come to mind about this. I see a father walking on a road with his child. The child walks where the father leads, just trusting him to guide and reach the end of the journey. The child can veer off to the right or left (it has a choice), but trust in its father keeps it close to his side, for he knows which path to take on this perilous journey. Just so if we stay close to God we trust in His protection which is given by God's grace, and so we can walk on our life's journey knowing He will keep us to the end. Perfectly said Irmela! Thank you.

By nature, as earth dwellers, we tend not to look toward eternity and our own shortcomings…to stop and have a bit of objective introspection. God needs to shake us loose a bit to examine ourselves through His direction. The Spirit allows us to stretch uncomfortably and then seek rescue. If we don't believe we need rescuing, we will not turn to Him. How does God's preparation illustrate his grace? We are not expected to fix ourselves, nor are we to punish ourselves even if we find those trespasses and shortcomings. He enlightens us to draw us to Himself so that we can repent and carry on, each step growing stronger in the faith and closer to Him. P.S. Thanks Irmela for posting the quote from Vernon McGee. He says it very well!

Because God chose us to be adopted through His efforts, His grace, we are predestined to live out as He would have us do so. We do still need to make the decision to do so, however. Grace is glorious because it reflects His glory. There is nothing else like it and it is given freely to us.

After we have made the commitment to believe in Christ and his salvation, the Spirit "will guide us into all the truth" (John 16: 13). We are not left to our own devices but little by little, knowledge and character will be built within us. When a person puts their faith in Jesus, their outlook on life and their focus on eternity becomes more important. Rather than sparring with the everyday challenges and the opinions of others, the way of life becomes one which honours God and treats others as a part of that faith. Love of God and other people around us automatically moves us to want to do activities that please God and that would glorify Him to those around us.

These questions are tough! I believe that everyone has a divine spark within them which can draw us further into our desire to live as a Christian. Not everyone accepts this influence. Once we start to observe the nature of man, and respond to the various prods of the Holy Spirit, we may hunger for that salvation. This reminds me of the age old question, "Is that all there is?". I have seen the Father draw people to Christ in a very few, rare occasions. Within a crowd, within discussions, there may be a person who draws your attention and you do not know why. These people usually have a command of themselves and an intelligence to listen to what has been said. It is instantly drawing; a presence. By nature, I think, we all sense these people and watch them skeptically at first to assess who they are and what they have to say. We need to be aware, however, that these influencers can be either evil or good and we need to refer back to the Holy Spirit before attending more to them. Humans are very good seekers! Our unfettered decision in anything (place to live and allegiance to that country, beliefs, manner of living, priorities in our view of the world) is very precious. When a decision is made freely, that means that you willingly take on the responsibilities and the consequences of your decision. God does not want a relationship with someone who if forced into a decision for believing in the rescue that Jesus offers. From the time of creation, He wanted a relationship with us when He wandered in the Garden with Adam. There is no relationship when one blindly follows or wavers in salvation.

God writes the rules and controls the game. He is the ultimate one who has created and rules the universe. By trying to earn salvation, we are in essence saying that God is not necessary; or at least, we can create the most perfect version of ourself and present ourself to him and get judged righteous. This splinters the body of Christ into those that are rich (and can afford to do good works) and those who are poor (and cannot afford to do them) . Your righteousness may become a different righteousness than my own. We become righteous in our own eyes. Ultimately, relying on ourselves for this detracts from the divine Godly essence put in each of us and blinds us to God's truth (which is the only one that counts). If we could make ourselves righteous on our efforts, then the Cross is not needed. It was simply another Jewish murder. Self-righteousness is never good. In fact, it is a flag that we need to do a major readjustment to our attitudes. When what we do and think is not relevant, but only faith is and our trust in God, we are following the path that He wants us to follow. It is also the SAFEST and best path for us, because He who gave us this gift has the power and desire for us to keep it. For some reason, God wants a close relationship with us! Marvelous!

We have been rescued from the absence of God in that, when we take a look at the cursed environment in which we currently live (see Deuteronomy for examples in Deuteronomy 28). I don't say that Christians are guaranteed a totally blessed life here, however, rescue comes with a trust in God's promises and a knowing that his eyes are always on us while we are here in the boot camp and we are encouraged to have hope and joy and trust that Jesus paid our full penalty. Spiritually, it means that we are rescued from the worst life both here and in eternity without hope and without connection to God. If we were not rescued, our lives here and in eternity would be forever hopeless and helpless rather than joyful and full of purpose. We cannot earn our salvation. There is no amount of good doing that would enable us to be rescued. Only God is capable of taking us in and keeping us close through all eternity. We simply don't have that capability. Because we acknowledge this, and God knows this, through His live for us, He gifts us with it. We have only to believe. Janzie! What a wonderful story. Thanks for sharing.

He is called the Lamb of God because he is the sacrifice for sin that God has chosen for us. His qualifications are: he must be the firstborn, without blemish (Exodus 12:5, 13:2). As I reviewed this (Him being perfect) I also had to meditate a bit on the result of the punishment he also received from his beating (Isaiah 52:14), that "his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men"; (Isaiah 53:2)…"he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." I can't imagine the beating that would take a perfect man and transform him to something of no beauty. Why is he punished for us? If we were left to our own devices, our punishment would result in (justly) going into eternal punishment with no redemption. Paul speaks to us that we could never be able to dig ourselves out of the hole we are in due to our inherited sin nature (Romans 3:10). John (John 3:16) cites the rationale, boiling it down to one scripture : "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life". God wants a relationship with us. He is literally calling us home, however, he cannot allow man to get away with sin without punishment especially when He clearly has commandments to root out sin in our lives. We cannot live with him in holiness while there is any sin within us. The blessing in the punishment is the fact that we can totally count on God to be consistent in character in any circumstance. He is not capricious. He is willing to sacrifice the only child He had in order to create us as joint-heirs.

We have been redeemed from the slavery of sin at a costly price. Jesus had to take on ALL of our sins and receive the associated punishment we should have received. We cannot imagine what it meant to become sin for us means. He gave up his life for all of us with all our sins in the past and in times to come until he returns….that's a lot of sin. This effort was so large, that it entailed everything mankind could think of so that it would not have to be done again. It was fully paid, once and for all. Amazing! We are justified in that sin does not automatically force us to sin. We are free enough to be able to take each thought we have and decide whether we are going to keep it or discard it; leave it die out or take action on it. We are able to think about how we live now, and how we reflect the Trinity to others and to live as Paul did, aware of his salvation but also aware of the actions that are needed to gain further rewards at the Bema Seat when we return. We can decide where we are going and see opportunities where we can show others what this is all about. We are still slaves because sin still exists and we can still fail (but we can repent and wipe the slate clean). We are still also subject to death and sickness (sic. All the curses). We just need to remember this is training and not the final destination.

Humankind, unfortunately, is basically bad which is an inherited attribute in our spiritual DNA which cannot be eliminated in our natural natures. We have to become a new creature and our heart replaced with a new heart. No fixing this. That being said, we can become aware of God's kingdom and follow the example of his Son which exercises that other part of our citizenship: that being Heaven. Jen, thanks for your quote on the Holy Spirit: As long as we live we will have this corruption in us. However if we allow the Holy Spirit who now dwells in us through faith in Jesus Christ to work His work of cleaning in us there is now given to us the power to overcome this corruption and to live as children of God (Walk before me and be holy. Genesis 17:1). There should be evidence of a change in us that comes from the work of the Holy Spirit in us to endeavor to live in a way to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever" as mans chief end. Westminster Catechism. I want to get into a serious study of the role of the Holy Spirit and will check this out further. Point well taken.

I noticed that all of the commandments that Jesus asked him about were the ones that dealt with the attitudes that come from the heart. This young ruler truly had done as much as was required of him when it came to relationships with others. One can surmise that he also followed all the other commandments. However, he was a responsible person as well, gathering and maintaining his wealth. The giving away of wealth that possibly his family and the community counted on was a step too far even for him. He had done his best but this was not enough. It was a strange idea for him to trust God enough that this, too, would be given up. Jesus used this example because the young ruler reflected the ultimate in Jewish worship as the Sanhedrin would have liked to see. The fact that this was not enough would be noticed by the listeners and the leaders very quickly. This example would also point a finger at how their relationship with God was faring. Grace shows through in the last verse of the scripture with a promise that what things men may aspire to do are impossible but with God all things are possible. The implied hope is that God is able to help us, even though it appears impossible (and He will). I also noticed that Jesus in this scripture does not rebuke the young man openly even though he had refused to give up his wealth. I think the human touch of God shows best in this scenario in Mark 10: 17-22. After the rich young ruler told Jesus that he had followed the commandments he spoke about, it says "21) Then Jesus beholding him loved him, …" To me, this shows a loving God recognizing how hard we try for Him and He notices and gives us grace.

The thief on the cross may or may not have listened to Jesus' preaching. He knew enough about Him, however, to tell the other thief to be quiet and to turn to Jesus and ask Him to remember him. He had enough faith to turn against whatever theology he had been brought up with and become a follower of Christ. He believed that Jesus could save his soul, now that the physical existence was coming to a close. He had nothing to base this on during the last hours of his life but believed in spite of that. We see the contrast with the other thief who rejected him. The gift granting him Paradise for eternity was granted in spite of all the other things that the thief had done in his life. Because grace is a gift of God and there is no power high than Him, it will always triumph over sin. It is also interesting that the only reason why he could get into Paradise with this grace was the man he was talking to was taking on his sin and the whole world's as their punishment so he could get to Paradise. I wonder, in the last hours, the thief recognized that Jesus was taking on his punishment?

If we were to look at this story as evidence of God's character, God loves us so much that He will forgive us and holds out his arms to us even when we have been willful and have walked away from him. He is always there for us, to take us back. It was good to reread this parable again. When I did, I noticed a couple of things: The Prodigal son was willing to confess his sins and sees himself (correctly) as not being worthy to be called a son. Instead, he was happy to be accepted back as a hired servant. Reality hit, and this young man had learned from it and was hard on himself and did not expect any special treatment. The Father looked for his son all the time! Here it says: "20) And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and rand, and fell on his neck, and kissed him". To me, this indicates that God is always on the lookout for us, watching for our coming. Great News! I'm also doing a study on inheritance. Notice here that the son may have lost/spent all his rewards and the good things that His Father had stored up for him, however, he had not lost his sonship. We should also be secure in this. I admire the younger son who was so honest with his father and realistic about himself.

The king not only finds out how much the servant owes him (10,000 talents: 1 talent equals roughly a year's wages) but he FORGIVES him the debt. The debt which the servant could never repay is written off the books. There was no further expectation that the servant pay the king back. Note too: there was no squabbling that the servant did not owe the money to the king. This was taken as fact. The forgiven servant withheld grace as soon as he looked to those people who owed HIM money. He went out and threatened the debtor with physical violence. We cannot call ourselves Jesus' disciples when we withhold grace. We are to be a reflection of Jesus as his disciples. I think the language in Matthew 18:34-35 is pretty plain: 34) And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. 35) So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses".

This scripture indicates in the way that it is translated, that for God, it was an expression of his extreme love. I sometimes liken it to the way that a parent feels when observing their children and all their uniqueness with a sense of wonder and tenderness. We see God this way through the Old Testament as well as the New (with many other personal attributes!). God knows that we cannot dig out from our earthly existence on our own efforts, so He provides grace. Since we cannot earn it, we must accept His grace and the gift, because we certainly couldn't do it. The grace is the reaching out of God's arm to us for support. The gift is an expression and provision of a means to be supported.

In essence, it is the grace we bestow upon ourselves without repentence or discipline; without the understanding of the necessity of the Cross and the sacrifice required for us. Grace is a gift. We cannot earn it, however, we need to be diligent keeping our hearts and basing our actions as He would have us live. In this way, we choose to act as a child of God out of our love for Him and what He has given to us. We have been given the grace of God through Jesus' sacrifice and will not have to go through the judgment and punishment that we deserve.

There is good but as a vestige of God. This vestige leads us to hope in Him and to recognize that spark in others. However, it is very rare that the good is pure and fully reflects His character. In fact, Paul comes to the conclusion that there are no righteous people, not one. Our basic character is bad and theologians would tells us this is because we were born in sin as a condition handed down through Adam. We have good and bad within us that we can act on but the good is insufficient to save us. We need to be created as a totally new creature. We are not healed but rather recreated. When we are in a position to do good AND benefit ourselves, we are operating from a deceitful heart. When something good is discovered for our benefit and find that it also becomes a weapon, that thinking comes from a deceitful heart. Deceitful hearts corrupt us because we may start with a good premise (albeit our thinking tends to be limited, uninspired and short-sighted!) but as soon as we start to twist it, we start to lose our focus. Once action is taken on that basis, humans then tend to build other thoughts into extending that original one. For example, commenting on another's actions may quickly spread to gossip which provides the basis for ourselves and others to judge that person even though they may be totally innocent to begin with. This may be one of the reasons why God does not reconnect with us through our actions but rather, creates a new heart in us and those actions coming through the Holy Spirit from the heart are the ones that have true value to Him and us. By the way Krissi, I like your summary re: sanctification "Sanctification is a process. It's not instantaneous ... not at all. With the Holy Spirit's indwelling power, Christians battle their own tendencies until they die. This is the "deceitful heart," the part of us that we may not be aware of, but that emerges into awareness when we do or think things that are shameful. " Well put!

Humankind is by nature, sinful. Even when the law was handed down to us which SHOULD have regulated our behaviour, Paul points to the fact that the law, in essence, identifies sin and makes us want to sin more. We cannot fight our bad nature because it is born in us. We cannot legislate our natures because no man is righteous, as Paul points out. We can't dig ourselves out of the hole except, by relying on what Christ did and not our efforts. He is the only way out. What motivates our actions before coming to Christ is our sinful nature. Once we believe in Christ, sin does not reign over us, however we are free to make choices. Should we choose to sin, then repent. It is a gift that was given to us by Jesus. Because of the sinful nature (filled with unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whispering, backbiting, God hating, despitefulness, pride, boasting, invention of evil things, disobedience to parents, covenant breakers, not capable of understanding, implacable, unmerciful and without natural affection) through what we see or hear, we have an opportunity to sin. These may be the symptoms of sin but the motivation comes from the heart. Conscious motivations are those motivations which use these attributes and act on them. There is a choice that is made to take action.

Humankind is in such bad shape, we needed a sacrifice through Jesus to absorb the punishment we deserve. We could not get out of the hole we are in without him. From our point of view, based on what we observe, it is highly unlikely that we would died for a truly righteous man or even a good man. Here is Jesus who died for us who are far worse than being good or righteous! Jesus understood, I suspect that the only way we could reconnect in a relationship with the Trinity was to offer to take on everyone's punishment: past, present and future until the Final Judgment and offer this grace freely. The remarkable thing is that God wants a relationship so badly with us, that he would do this. The other remarkable thing is that God is still being absolutely fair in fulfilling the law so that we can continue to trust him. Jesus' sacrifice was required because a punishment was required. This was not something that God did to make an exception Because of this, as well, all of the other scriptures stand trustworthy. God is a God that maintains His promises and His reputation. The ultimate motivation for the sacrifice is the incomprehensible love he has for us and the desire to keep us close for eternity.

Grace is a state of favor and protection and provision given to us from God (I also like the other definitions I see here!). I thought I would look up one church's definition and then what the words might have meant in the time that Paul was writing his letters. The Catholic definition is "the state of being in God's friendship and the necessary condition of the soul at death in order to attain heaven." (http://www.catholicculture.com) How did the Roman Era look at Grace and Faith through the definitions of "charis" and "pistis"? "The charis (gift of good, translated grace) would be made with the understanding that the gift could never be repaid (in the sense of simply repaying a loan). The expectation of the patron was that the client would maintain a high degree of loyalty and gratitude toward the patron. That aspect of the relationship is contained in the Greek word "pistis", which is the same word translated "faith" and "faithfulness" in the English versions of the New Testament. In other words, a client under the Roman patronage system would receive a gift (charis) that likely could never be fully repaid in money or goods. The client's role was to exhibit and demonstrate faithful loyalty (pistis), including public demonstrations of gratitude. The exercise of pistis reflects grateful trust - a powerful, energetic, living belief - that the patron will actually do what he promises to do. This charis relationship was important for survival and advancement in the first century Greco-Roman world - and, as historians confirm, the practice was widespread. (https://www.ucg.ca/booklets/what-does-the-bible-teach-about-grace/what-did-grace-mean-in-the-first-century-world) Paul told us that "There is none righteous, no, not one:" (Romans 3:10). This contrasted with the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf, taking all of our punishment (which we rightly deserved) for our sins. Even though we still live and will continue to sin , when we repent, this cleanses us of our sins because of what Jesus did still continues to this day until we die. Our punishment will not be exacted and we live in a state where we do not worry about the judgments to come and can instead focus on supporting other believers and loving and appreciating God for this safe space. We have one condition for this grace. We must have faith in what Jesus did for us to gain the grace (it is logical, then that if you do not believe in Christ and his sacrifice, you do not live in a state of grace). In thinking about the opposite of peace with God, it could be being at war with God. Satan and his angels took this on is time past and it continues today through to the End of Days. The other thought is that Jesus himself enacted this when he was totally cut off from God on the cross and cried out to him "Eloi! Eloi! Lama Sabachthani? (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?). Is the opposite of peace with God the more terrible state: being forsaken of God?

It was important to God that his people understand how he thinks about them and that they understand how much love he has for them. The fact that they (and us) are less than a shining image is disturbing, however, it is also wonderful to know that God loves us even when our reputation and mindset are not only imperfect but unacceptable: we cannot stand on our own reputations to earn our way into his family. Hosea and Gomer have a difficult relationship but Hosea still disregards how he is treated and continues to show her love and direction. We don't deserve the love that God gives us but He continues to give us His love anyway. God has a great love for Israel and through our grafting in, He loves us as well. It had to have hurt Hosea that his wife was not only a prostitute but also that she again and again decided to turn to other men. Likewise, we are all subject to turning to other activities or ideas that are not what God wants for us, but He continues to grab our attention and direct us back to Him with loving kindness and grace. In looking through some of the comments, I really like the term OUTRAGEOUS Grace, BoazNigel. Great thought! Just as Hosea would have been hurt, God, too, continues to ignore the hurts, teach and guide us and take us back lovingly. Grace, indeed.

My understanding is that all sins will be forgiven for those who repent (declare them, ask for forgiveness (attempt to not) do the sin again. Mark 3:29 gives us the only sin that is the exception. "But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation". I don't know enough about this particular sin (and I need to research this further). Rebellion can find its way into a believer's life bit by bit whenever we fail to acknowledge God in the things He does for us and the opportunities and events that He leads us to. God does not forgive those who do not repent and surrender to him because it simply doesn't make sense to do so. God cannot have sin in his environment. While we do not repent and allow ourselves to be cleansed we still bear that sin. 1 John 1:9 states "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Further, verse 10, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." This appears to be a BIG deal. God knows that this is and will continue to be a struggle for us all, which is why repentence works as it does and why Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice. So long as we KNOW we have sinned and refuse to repent, we are not righteous. God will not forgive the unrighteousness although He continues to love the sinner.

Obadiah was very brave in all that he did at the court. He would have seen things and heard things that confirmed the power, reach and destructive ability that the king had. In spite of all this, he took the chance to hide the prophets. It appears that he also knew the extent to which the King sent people to find Elijah (..."there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee" - 1 Kings 18:10). He further indicates that they took an oath, confirming that they did not find him. For Obadiah to come back and tell the King that he found Elijah, he seems to indicate that this was a death sentence. Nonetheless, based on Elijah's promise that he would meet the King that day, he did as he was asked. He could have been killed outright by the King who could have met Elijah later that same day. I sense that Obadiah was a good man and a good friend.

God loves widows and children, doesn't He? When Jesus was at the synagogue and saw the widow put in her mites, all that she had, he specifically pointed her out to his disciples. God values the proportionate response. If a rich man were to provide for Elijah, it would be out of his bounty. For a widow with no means, on the last of her provision to take of that and provide for Elijah, this would have been a sacrifice.