seekingGod

I am 42 year old wife and mother who recently moved from Southern Florida to upstate Vermont. A year and a half ago the Lord put a call on both mine and my husbands heart to give up our destructive evil ways and to move to Vermont, where I was raised. Thankfully, we followed the Lord. Since then, we have both given up drinking. We have now been sober 13 months and have never been happier. The joy of the Lord is amazing. We are both active members of the church, and our seven year old daughter is just awesome with the love she shows for the Lord. I believe in my heart that He used our love for her and her welfare to change us, and by doing so, brought us home to Him also. I wish everyone could experience the happiness I feel from beginning to know the Lord. We attend a Pentecostal church, have both been Baptized in the Holy Spirit, and seek day by day to increase our love and appreciation of WHO Jesus is, not just what He is. I am blessed to have this bible study and prayerfully join in to gain an indepth understanding of His Word. Because I cannot currently attend a bible study outside the home, I believe I will find encouragement from other Christians seeking knowledge. God Bless In His Service,

The significance of Jesus among the lampstands is to depict His involvement in and His active part of the Church, His Body. I will never leave you or forsake you (Isaiah 43:5) Jesus lives among us still, and lives within us. He is a guiding light in our lives, if we let him. He is not just among the lampstands(churhes), He is the Church. Without Him being the Head of the Church, there would be no reason for the Body of the Church. We should always look toward the light and not lose focus of why Jesus came. To many times we seek religion for comfort of ourselves and forget the importance of the covenant RELATIONSHIP with God, which Jesus came to restore.

The vision of Jesus among the lampstands is different than the Carpenter-Teacher because Jesus was both fully God and fully man. While He was teaching on this Earth, He showed his physical body. Through this, He showed us the path to righteousness and taught that it is possible to live a more and pleasing way. Because He is now re-united in Heaven, He shows His Spirit body. Emotionally, the reader should sense by this vision the Holiness, purity and cleanness of God and have a sense of intense reverance for who He is. This understanding of Jesus is important to a balanced faith because Jesus is God, and we were made in "their" image. We are cleansed and seen as righteous by our faith and belief in who He was, is , and will always be. He walked among us, suffered, and died - just like we do. Because of this, and because He rose again, we build our faith by knowing the promise. He died and rose as was promised and therefore we also will obtain a spirit body and be cleansed in Heaven to share eternal companionship with the Father.

I believe that Christians are being persecuted in every country where the gospel is being taught, in one form or another. Asia, China,Middle-East are what normally come to mind. But anywhere there is intolerance there will be persecution. How can the Book Of Revelation be a comfort and encouragement to them? By seeing that since man began to worship God, believers have been seen as different and therefore persecuted. Jesus shows that in the end, He will again be victorious and the non-believers and evil-doers will come under His power and will suffer His judgement. At the same time, those who steadfastly suffered for the faith will have a greater glory after death.

Revelation 1:8 tells us that the Father is the Alpha and the Omega, God All-Mighty. Jesus says in 1:17 that He is the first and the last. The significance of this to our understanding of who Jesus was. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. Jesus is God make flesh The second part of the Holy Trinity

Witnessing and giving testimony is to build faith in the d church and to give strength and courage to the followers and believers of Jesus. How is Jesus as the "faithful witness" suppossed to encourage us? Even though He died under persecution, He rose again to live evermore. To the believers that would die for His names sake, He gives hope of a greater blessing. Why are we afraid to witness? It is my opinion that because our life is "easier", we do not have the inner need for a greater hope. We do not allow ourselves to become completely, utterly dependant on God. People under persecution have to focus on their faith and the hope of things to come because their life is "harder". They witness and testify not only to build their strength and faith, but also to encourage and strengthen other believers. Their only hope is God. In our society, we depend either on ourselves or other people, therefore we do not see the need to encourage others or put God first. We have the tendency to conform to this world. Our comfortableness in our freedom to do so ,but as not to offend others who do not, we stay silent. We rely on things seen instead of having hope in the things not seen.