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 ABIDING Jesus spoke of us as His Father's vineyard. Jesus is the Vine and we are His branches. Except for all Messianic Jews who follow Messiah Jesus as Lord and Savior, the rest of those who follow Jesus were "grafted into the Vine."  Those messianic Jews know that their salvation is just like that of Gentile believers. Salvation is a gift of God to be received in faith because of all He has done and finished in the Incarnation, life, ministry, sacrificial death, physical resurrection and His Ascencion, returning to the Father's Right hand. The only reason I can "abide in Christ Jesus" is that He united me with Himself. I initiated nothing. I received by grace through faith all God has done for me in Jesus. He cut away my old nature ( Colossians 2:11-15 ) and gave me a new heart and a new spirit, a new heredity, a new spiritual DNA. ( Ezekiel 11:19-21 ) God has caused me to stand before Him holy, blameless and beyond reproach. He has forgiven my sin as I b...
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 RIVER FLOW An obstacle in a riverbed will be a matter of total indifference to the River of Life that flows steadily through a follower of Jesus Christ. When our focus remains on the Source of this Living Stream within us, we know that He Who began a good work in us WILL bring that work of salvation to perfection and completion. Being justified by grace through faith, we now have PEACE with God by Jesus Christ. We have access, even now, to the grace in which we stand. Ephesians 2:18 " Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us."   Ephesians 3:12 " Because of Christ and our faith in Him,  we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence." Flow, River, flow! Trust His Life being lived in you by the Holy Spirit.
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 PSALM 106:24 " Then they despised the pleasant land;  they did not believe His promise." The people of God, those He had delivered from over 400 years of slavery in Egypt, despised the land God had given to them as their inheritance as He had promised Abraham. Why is the world would they refuse to enter in? It was then and it is the same even now...when God's people refuse to believe His promises, they balk at obeying God in the very things that ALONE make for life. He promised to drive out the utterly corrupted pagan nations and to establish Israel in the land that would be named after them. They doubted than God could lay out a banquet in the wilderness and provide for them in ways that would be new to them. They were to learn to trust and obey and to see the salvation of God. They grumbled and wouldn't obey because they trusted MORE in what they could perceive with their own finite understanding than what God had plainly laid out before them.  They saw the pagan ...
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 PURPOSE The Law of God given to Israel and the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus Christ, the Word of God Incarnate, have the same purpose. They both describe Life as it should be lived in order to know God and be reconciled to Him. Both the Law and the Sermon on the Mount, are also like mirrors exposing the true inner character of every human from Eden till now. No one, except for Jesus Christ, has ever lived a life in perfect harmony with the Law of God and Jesus' own sermon. Mankind is NOT "basically good" and any true student of human history would confirm that fact. God's Word makes that crystal clear. Humans can't ever consistently keep God's Law for to be "made righteous" by keeping the Law requires that you never, ever, ever break even one of God's Laws. Even if you kept the Law for 100 years perfectly and on your 101st birthday, you break one Law, it would be as if you never, ever, ever, even kept one of God's Laws. The Sermon on th...
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 A LAMP UNTO MY FEET God tells us through the Psalmist that His Word is a "lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." That described light is not a hand-held halogen flashlight. It was the oil lamp held in the hand that gave enough light to take the next step. People need and want direction for living out their lives. They can spend their lives trying to "make their dreams come true." All the while, God's plans, His "dreams" for you are initiated by, continued by and brought to competition by God's Power, His Presence, and His Provision. The Word of God brings light to one's whole life. Rebell against it, for whatever reason, and the fruit will always be darkness, deception, and delusion about the essence of life. Only in God can your soul be at rest. It is ONLY in Him that you will ever experience God's salvation. Arguing with God about passages you don't want to hear doesn't change the Truth of God for your lie. There is a guara...
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 COVERED UP OR COVERING? In the Old Testament, the blood of animals offered as the antidote for sin covered the sin that had been committed. Trying to keep all the regulations of the Law resulted in a sense of futility as the Law couldn't change a person's heart nor give the adherent a new nature. The Law was given to show what real life is meant to be and how human beings are utterly incapable to saving themselves by keeping rules and regulations. The Law was given to drive humanity toward the Grace of God that was surely coming in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10:11-14 " Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins . But our High Priest (Jesus Christ) offered Himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time . Then He sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There He waits until His enemies are humbled and made a footstool under Hi...
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 PSALM 23 A sheep doesn't lead itself; it follows the Shepherd. The sheep trusts, submits to, and obeys the Shepherd because it has learned in following that the Shepherd knows best how to tend His sheep. It is in the Shepherd that the sheep will know rest, hope, confidence and peace. It is in believing the Shepherd that we enter into His rest, the rest He has prepared for all who will but believe Him.  The evidence that a sheep believes the Shepherd is seen in the sheep following the Shepherd. Life for a sheep is a changed life. It is a life of surrendered dependance, not some craven relinquishment, but a surrender that comes from confidence in the eternal love and faithfulness of the Shepherd. It is in living dependance upon the Shepherd that the sheep enters into what it actually means to be a sheep, to be fully a sheep in every detail. Wholeness of life is found in believing and then receiving all the provision the Shepherd has in store for the sheep, day by day.  The...
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