Don W

John encourages each group of Christians in the church because his desire for all of them is to love one-another by serving each other and following his example of encouragement with each other in the church; and he does so by reminding them that because of Jesus Christ their sins are all forgiven them for Christ

When we know better but still harbor a hatred or unforgiveness or grudge against someone else, especially one of our brothers or sisters in the Lord, then we are blinded spiritually and have a lack of fellowship with them as well as with the Lord Jesus Christ, and we must give these feelings up by confessing them to the Lord and then repenting of them for sure, and only then will we be forgiven for our sins and the Holy Spirit will bring us back into fellowship with our brothers and sisters and especially with the Lord Jesus Christ, and restore the joy in the Lord a long with them. This happened to me a few years ago when I harbored a hatred for another person and the Holy Spirit convicted me of it, I went to the Lord and asked God for His forgiveness for it and He forgave me and restored my fellowship not only with the person I now have learned to love, but even more importantly, with the Lord Himself. I was very miserable for a while and it was probably very hard for anyone to live with me but after words, the Holy Spirit restored me and gave me once again the Christian joy that I used to have when I was a brand-new believer, and I believe that this is what John is speaking of here in this passage. Amen!

We must follow and obey Christ in all that He has shown us from His Word, and not to be legalistic or judgmental over other Christians that may be following Him and in obedience to Him, but in a different way. The Pharisees were self-righteous and didn

John here gives us the assurance that Jesus is our Advocate before the Father in heaven to argue our case out of His infinite love and grace for our eternal destiny in heavenly glory; and our Lord Jesus not only has given Himself for all of our sins that all of them, past, present, and future sins are forgiven by His atoning sacrifice for them, but He also argues our case for the holy justice and the mercy of God the Father to be upon us; and He is totally successful in presenting His case in our behalf and so we who have truly believed in the Lord Jesus Christ have all of our sins forgiven by Him and we are saved by His Advocacy and His Atonement for us forever in heavenly glory. This we should be praising and thanking our Lord God for His mercy and loving-kindness forever and ever, and not choosing to sin against Him ever again! Amen!

Confession in the Bible is what we do when we agree with God about how rotten and dirty our sins are that we do and those within us (as totally depraved, sinful people) so if we confess our sins to God, He will give us His holiness instead of the guilt we have when we don

These Christians are lying to themselves and others about their

Our fellowship with other Christians is often just on a surface level because we talk about the things of the world too much (such as the weather and what

No, this is very true when we believe in and put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; then we know for certain, absolutely so, that since Christ in His death was totally freed from this sinful world, so we Christians are united in Him and His death, we, too, are freed from the doing the sins of this world as far as Christ is our Master; and this will completely change our whole lives as we now live for Christ in all the things we do and say

As stated above, when Christ was put to death on the cross, we became united with Him because He put to death all of the sins of our flesh, thus rendering our old sinful nature virtually powerless because of His crucifixion of it upon the cross. We have been freed from the slavery of sin in our lives; and have a new Master in our lives whom we are now slaves to our loving and merciful God our Lord and Savior. Now that we have been freed from sin, we will still struggle against temptations that come our way daily but know that we don

This is both a figurative

This is all referring to Christ

Our baptism brings about our union with Christ by joining us to Him in His death on the cross of Calvary and in the grave; and in joining us to Him in His resurrection so that we, too, who believe and trust in Him as His chosen ones, will be resurrected someday from our graves to join Him in heavenly glory and to be just as He is as our Lord and Savior when we will know the extent of what baptism and all the other Christian doctrines are because we will see Him as He is there. As I said before, our baptism symbolizes our union with Christ as His chosen people in His death and His resurrection from the dead. Amen!

When we come to know Jesus Christ personally as our Lord and Savior (by the Holy Spirit convicting us of our need for Him as our Savior and Lord), then we being

Adam

Yes, sin has been in the world and has affected all of mankind long before Moses brought God

One just has to watch the news on TV or read about it in the newspaper or magazine and we all see the results of one person who does or says something that affects the entire group of people, such as the high-minded business executives whom some of them rob their businesses of millions of dollars and that means the business goes bankrupt and many people are put out of work; or the president making a single decision that affects millions of people, etc. The members of the group are all connected together by a bond of work, related, or in some way they all depend upon each other. But, with your two examples above about the meaning of

Now that we are reconciled with God because of what Christ Jesus has done for us, we have peace with God and He is our heavenly Father so we can cry out:

If Christ had not died for us and hadn

All of them build up Christ-like maturity in our lives so we can better see and know Christ Jesus our Lord in our lives and, as James puts it,

It is the same with Abraham as it is with us who are the off-spring of him, that is, that we are justified by our faith in God and we walk in the same faith. To be justified means that we are promised by God that since we believe and trust in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, then we are said to be righteous (or perfect) before Him just as the men of God, including David, a man after God

Lord my God, help me to extol (exalt) You at all times for Your deliverances all through history and for us here today; let my soul always boast in You, Lord Jesus, and never in myself or my own accomplishments; and all of us will glorify the LORD together with other Christian believers. Help me to always seek Your face, Lord Jesus, and trust in Your answer to all my fears; to have a radiant face towards You, and never to be covered again with shame or condemnation. Lord, I desire to taste Your salvation and see that You are perfectly good and righteous; and help me to always take refuge in You, Lord Jesus, and to fear (or reverence) You in all that I do and say; and help me to keep my tongue from evil things and my lips from telling lies, just because it may be

David gives plenty of encouragement to the discouraged and broken-hearted people of God, including that we can boast in the LORD and rejoice in Him; because of His deliverance from all of our fears when we seek Him and look to Him; we are saved by Him and delivered from our troubles; when we fear Him we will lack nothing (that He wants us to have); we are to turn from evil doing and do good (for others), to seek peace (in Him) and pursue peace (the peace of God that is above human understanding); and our God delivers us from all of our troubles and is (very) close to us who are broken-hearted and discouraged, and saves us who are crushed in our spirits. God redeems us by saving us from our sins (buying us back from are old way of life) in order to then serve Him forever as our Kinsman-redeemer; and gives us eternal life in Him. Amen! When we take our refuge in Him as His redeemed servants, then we are not condemned ever because His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, took upon Himself all of our condemnation of our sins

We should continually praise our God Almighty continually because He alone is worthy of our worship and our praise; He has delivered us from our enemies (even death, our last and greatest enemy) and from hell unto Himself; He has given us new lives in Him as our Lord and Savior; and because He told us to do so in several places in His Word. There are seemingly several barriers, such as time, busyness, seeking pleasure(s) instead of spending time loving and praising God; but they are all superficially produced to take our time up with things of the world and not of the Lord where we should be training ourselves to obey Him and to praise Him continually for who God is and for all that He has done for us! Amen!

The primary emotion in Psalm 100 is in His people jubilantly praising God for all the good things He has done; His steadfast love towards us as His chosen people; and His faithfulness as our Lord and Savior. We can also trust Him totally to care and protect us; and to love to worship Him along with His people to worship God. The reasons for praise in verses 3 and 5 are that He is the LORD our God and He has made (or created) us, and we belong to Him; and the commands here are to know (personally and thoroughly) that He is the LORD God; to enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts (of the Temple) with praise; and to give thanks (always) to Him and (to always) praise His Name. Amen!

Jesus Christ is the Messiah-King and is throughout the Scriptures called The Rock or Chief Cornerstone of the building, His Body. We have a choice (as did the Jewish people throughout the ages) of either running to Him to be saved forever and protected by Him (or being secure for eternity in His salvation for us); or as the Jewish leaders and most of the Jews and Gentiles in the world, of completely rejecting Him as their Messiah. When Jesus Christ, the Anointed One or Messiah, is rejected by men and women, then He is described as the Rock by which they stumble or fall, or the Rock that falls upon them and crushes them to death. Those of us who are led by the Holy Spirit to let His light shine upon us, to come and know our Lord Jesus Christ as our Messiah-King, are a part of His Body, the Church, and He is the Chief Cornerstone of the Church. To Him we bless who