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Let’s assume you are in a church that takes seriously its “equipping of the saints for the work of ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 412). Your church actually relies on you as an eager participant when it meets, enthusiastically worshiping the Lord in a biblical fashion. It focuses on regularly and faithfully remembering our complete, permanent forgiveness at the cross, and has taught you to think as a little child who knows that his Daddy loves him, absolutely unconditionally.…

The church functions  to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry” (Ephesian’s 4:11)—to naturally, spontaneously, and unconsciously (NSU minister to the others in their church and to the world around them, as we saw last week. What does “the Truth” (the law of God, proclaimed by one “walking by faith”) tell us about how “equip the saints” occurs? What is a New Testament church like? It may come in all shapes and sizes. A biblical wineskin that constitutes “the church” may vary…

They won the victory over him by the blood of the Lamb and by THE TRUTH WHICH THEY PROCLAIMED (Revelation 12:11). Be ready to SPEAK UP AND TELL ANYONE who asks why you’re living the way you are (1 Peter 3:15). As the church learns to walk by faith in the Truth of God, these verses introduce the second step the church will take, after Standing for the Truth:  2. At every opportunity, the church will PROCLAIM THAT TRUTH. As we saw last week,…

Last week we discussed the Truth—the law of God applied experientially by the Spirit of God in our lives. We could summarize last week’s posting with this statement: “The law of God, expressed by the Spirit of God in our lives as we walk by faith, is the Truth that sets us free; The law of God, expressed by our attempts to obey it, is the ‘law of sin and death’ that kills us.” As the church learns to walk by faith in the…

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth  (John 1:14). From the time of Moses receiving the 10 Commandments on Mt. Sinai in about 1500 B.C., until 4 B.C. when Jesus came to earth as a baby in Bethlehem, the Law of God was objective. It was arm’s-length, intellectually knowable—Israel’s perfect standard of truth to follow in all matters of faith and conduct.…

The question of how to be “in the world and not of it” (John 17:16-18) is always front and center for Christians who take our commission to rule over the earth seriously (Genesis 1:24). The culture in which we live is blindly and rapidly turning from God and worshiping at the shrine of the new “woke-LGBTQ+” religion. Make no mistake, this is a satanic religion, making significant inroads into a slumbering, unaware church.. According to Statista, a data-gathering firm, today “never” and “seldom” church-goers…

Last week we saw an example of a middle-aged mom facing a life-threatening disease, and the fear that plagued her as she was bombarded with these thoughts: “I am so afraid I may never live to see my daughter marry and have children.”  “I am afraid I will never get to see my present grandchildren grow up.” “I am afraid I will have to leave my husband before we have a chance to grow old together.”  We saw in this mother’s life the tremendous…

Some years ago I got an email from a close, personal friend, a mother with three grown children, who was facing a severe, life-threatening illness. The email included the following paragraph, quoted here, verbatim: “Oh, wretched man that I am! Every day and all day long I am confronted with my constant distrust of God.  I abandon Him at every turn looking for someone or something else to save me.  I am so eager and willing to put my trust in horses and chariots;…

“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). “Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.” (Luke 18:17). In a nutshell, these two verses completely torpedo the common teaching of sanctification by obedience to the law of God. We naturally think “denying ourselves and taking up our crosses” means disciplining ourselves to do something that…

In these blog postings, we have seen that we were completely addicted to the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil by eating it ”in Adam,” in the Garden of Eden at the Fall. As a result, everything we do, think, understand and learn, we visualize in terms of “is this a good thing or is it a bad thing,” and we have done so since we came out of the womb. We are completely unaware that this is not…