emmaus

We "offer the members of your body" daily by the choices we make in our minds, the places our feet take us, our hands by the things we touch. I'm reminded of the children's song, "Oh Be Careful Little Ears". The spirit is strong but the flesh is weak so we can do things without thinking and sin unconsciously. 2nd Chronicles 7:14 says it all about offering our members deliberately to God, humble ourselves, pray, seek God's face and turn form our wicked ways. We have to change our old habits, not do the things we use to do so that we can now do the things we should.

When sin reigned or had control of our lives our allegiance was to the devil and we obeyed him.

In verse 11 these words mean to decide for yourself. It's not convincing ourselves of something but deciding if we are going to step out in faith and believe God's promises for us. The effect in our lives when we do this is life altering, we are not the same anymore. We still fail but no one was perfect but Jesus.

Our old selves has died with Christ on the cross through baptism. What is dead is dead and gone, so we are free and not a slave to sin anymore. Knowing this we must turn from our wicked ways and follow Jesus. It gives confidence that we are not alone, we know that the Holy Spirit is here with us and will help us.

I'm not sure I understand that Paul is saying here but I believe he is talking about Christ's death on the cross. It becomes our own when we are baptized. We die and are born again. It's real but I think it's a spiritaul death and rebirth. We make a public demonstration, through faith, of joining Christ in His death and resurrection when we are baptized.

The water covering us is Christ's death and burial, when we rise up from the water it is the new man that is resurrected.

We are uniting ourselves with Christ by accepting His death on the cross as payment for our sins. When we are baptized into his death and resurrection we are making a statement saying that we are uniting ourselves with Christ, the old is gone and the new has come. The visual picture of us being baptized is the symbolism of our union with Christ.

We are under the headship of Christ when we are baptised. We must have faith in God to bring about this change. The implications of us having died with Christ are that we will be resurrected as He was.

Adam represents all mankind because he is our earthly ancestor who we were modeled after. Christ is our spiritual or heavenly ancestor. If we are not covered by the blood of Christ we are not a part of Him, He isn't our "representative" or "head". This is rebellion and Christ's death would be of no effect.

We are all "born into sin" or have a willful rebellion in us. This has been so since Adam. The trespass increased when the law was given through Moses and we willfully choose to sin.

Everything from our government leaders to the aldermen and city council members speak on our behalf. We have given them authority to speak and make decisions. They are to make decisions based on what is in the best interest of their constituents.

Reconciliation is to come together in agreement. It is necessary to reconcile with God so that we can have a loving relationship with him. We are being saved by Jesus' life because He taught us the right way to live when He was on earth. Jesus is helping us in this life by interceding for us with the Father and by the peace He left with us.

We have to be willing to accept the fact that Jesus loved and died for us when we were sinful and carnal minded. When we have given our lives to Him, He delights in us. We will never be perfect here on earth and God knows that. Christ died for us when we were at our worst, if He's willing to do that He will surely not give up on us when we love Him and try to live for Him.

We can rejoice in our sufferings because we have hope. We know that if we continue to seek God's face that we have a future home with Him. Perseverance builds patience, character is what we are made of and hope is the knowledge of our future home with Jesus.

The reason given by God for Abraham's righteousness or justification was his belief, without belief there is no connection to God. It is the same for us today except we go through Jesus to become justified. It means "Just-as-if-I'd never sinned".

We must give of ourselves and our finances out of love for God to receive this promise. There is no limit with God. He can do more than we can imagine. We can trust God to work out our life better than we could have ever dreamed. We just have to be faithful and keep our focus on Him.

The Philippians would be rewarded in heaven for the people who were saved and then went on to win more souls to the Lord. Although Paul might have done the labor, the Philippians had provided the finances that enabled him to do so. The temporal blessings that they received would have been the strengthening of their faith and church.

Christ is the basis of Paul's contentment. This knowledge of Christ spurs Paul on to be more like Him. Maturity as a Christian is what brings about this contentment. Our faith and trust deepens and grows as we go through life and we see where God has brought us from and what He has brought us through.

If our minds are on treasures here on earth our focus is lost on doing God's work. Greed would be the motivation for this teaching. The bible says to praise God no matter your circumstances.

We must control our thoughts or the devil will control them for us. I try to focus on positive things that I can do. Bible studies are great, I keep our church's website updated, pray, if I keep my focus on God everything is going to work out.

There is no relationship without communication. God wants us to come to Him with our needs and worries, not to just babble on about them but confide and trust in Him. He has promised peace that is beyond our understanding.

We should start our prayers by praising Him and telling Him what a mighty God He is, thanking Him for the things He has done in the past. When we do that it reminds us who He is and what He is capable of. This builds our faith and makes it stronger.

Rejoicing in the Lord would be both a feeling and an action. We would not be able to sit still with that joy in our hearts. If we don't feel like rejoicing we should praise God, sing, pray, remember what a wonderful God we serve. When we rejoice we want to do more for the Lord's glory.

We have to know to where and what we belong to. If we remember where our true home is we won't live for the rewards of this life. We are to pray for our country and it's leaders but we're not to become so involved in it that we loose sight of our heavenly home.

Paul ask them to imitate him as he imitated Jesus. We are hesitant to do this because we know we fall short in our walk. There are saints of God in our churches who we learn from, and their prayer is, "Lord help me to be a better Christian." Our family, friends, anyone we're around is likely to imitate us. If sin is contagious then Godliness should be too.