Posted on 10/23/2018 4:22:37 AM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit" (I Peter 3:18).
And when you read Scripture and you find out, like I have posted before, when we deal with people-our friends or our associates. Either the Scriptures are true or they are not. And in John chapter 3, you need to read the whole chapter. I mean, you get into not only born again and that God gave His son-but you get into the fact that the wrath of God abideth on them that don't believe right now! So when I talk to somebody that is an unbeliever-the very wrath of God abideth on them. Oh, but He is a loving God! You better define His love!
As blood-bought believers, now we can love Him-how? Because He first loved us!
That verse says that God so loved . . . that's past tense . . . how can God do more than He already did at Calvary? We get this mushy love out here and we get all this other kind of junk going on that's not scriptural. PEOPLE ARE DAMNED TO HELL IF THEY ARE NOT SAVED!!!!! It's not waiting for some opportune time! If the Gospel comes to them, they got to react then!!! God's Spirit doesn't have to strive with them all the time. The very fact that He died is the apex, the epitome of love. You can't do more than that!
That's why you show people the cross! Calvary! You don't show them 'religion' - you show them the cross! They have to deal with the cross. The only way you can deal specifically with that cross is to understand and be honest about who you are in relationship with God.
- You are unholy. - Everything that you do that is right is filthy rags. - You're own righteousness is filthy rags!
And when you get that perspective-I tell you what-you can do business with God. Only a great God can give and only a great God can give Himself. You think about Him giving Himself, and why, and you read verses like this-God defines it. It's not confusing. You don't need interpretations of dead languages . . . You can read 'thus saith the Lord'-it tells you why.
- You are a sinner. - You are lost. - You are undone. - Your father is the devil. - You have to be born again by God's Spirit to be in His family. - There has to be a supernatural transaction that takes place.
So you need to get your perspective properly, and biblically - on Who God is, and Who Jesus is (Jesus is God) and He is God manifest in the flesh-that is the incarnation.
“No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:18).
What am I saying? What I am saying is . . . voluntarily . . . our Lord and Saviour gave Himself for us-voluntarily and the other part is, vicariously.
Everybody knows what vicarious means? In place of us? Do you know that there is a religious organization that has a head of that organization that believes he is the answer to mankind on earth-that he has been given vicariously to the world. They call him ‘papa’, the ‘pope.’ He has a throne that he sits on that they consider ‘ex cathedra’- when he sits on that throne, whatever he says is infallible. They write it on a piece of paper and they call it a Bull (and this preachers thinks it’s nothing but bull). My word, for a man to say that he is in place of God on the planet earth-that he is the holy father-that’s so devilish it stinks! That’s why they don’t want you to read the Bible. That’s why they like to change the Bible in every way they can so that they can try to trick people. Can’t trick people if they have the Word of God because they are going to check them out with the Book-and that is why it is important to know we have the Book to check them out with.
It’s pretty simple to anybody that is saved and you really think this thing through logically.
Oh, we’re sorry that we had the inquisition and we killed all you people, so please forgive us and let’s get back to business. What’s the business? We’re going to be the religious head of the world-that’s the business. God said so. No! You are not the rock, you are not even a stone-you are a puke. If you don’t get saved, you are going to burn in hell. There is no way there is any religious entity that is co-equal with God.
Only God is God, and Jesus Christ is God and He is the Head of His Church!
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-6).
This passage is speaking about Jesus Christ.
- He was wounded for our transgressions - It wasn’t the pope.
- He was bruised for our iniquities - No way this is the pope.
- the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed - oh yeah, I know that verse . . . they use it all the time on TV. We ain’t got no diseases, we ain’t got no sickness, because Jeeesuuus healed us. Yea, and like this is heaven, dummy. Can Jesus heal? In a minute! Just like that! Those stripes healed us from the wrath of God-from the penalty of sin.
- the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all - ain’t no priest, ain’t no potentate, ain’t no preacher, ain’t nobody that died for your sins. Nobody bears the wounds except Jesus Christ.
Vicariously means that He did all that for you and I-personally!
When you received Him - His death is our death.
When you received Him - His resurrection is our resurrection.
When you received Him - You entered into the Body of Jesus Christ, we are co-laborers with Him.
When you received Him - We became joint-heirs with Him.
Wow! Because of what He did-not what anybody else did.
Only a great God can give, and only a great God can give Himself.
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed” (I Peter 2:24).
You see the context? Healed from what? Healed from the penalty of sin! It goes with the stripes of Isaiah.
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25).
Think about that! This salvation is actual or experiential in all who believe. Somebody asks you, Are you saved. You say ‘yea!’ How do you know? “I know” How do you know? “Because I did what He told me to do, and He did what He told me He was going to do.” Well, how else do you know? “He’s living in here, remember, He lives, He lives, He’s in my heart today . . .” A lot of songs are written.
I’ve got books in there that explain this. I’ve got a book in there, that after I was done reading it, I was so messed up, it was pathetic. I mean, everything he said was like . . . true? He went into metaphysical stuff - like this is what happened inside your body when you got saved, I mean, I can do it plainly like spiritual circumcision-but he went into emotions, psychological stuff, deep! And I read half the book and I’m saying, “Wow! Thank God I didn’t have to know all this stuff to get saved!”
Well, how do you know you are saved? “Because I am!” How do you know? “I just know!” How can you just know? “Because I was there! He did something to me! He moved in!!!”
Now people have various and different experiences, but if you are saved you know that something happened to you. And it happened to you because of your works? No! It was because of your belief in your heart-exercising of your will to believe what God said about you. And when He told you about who you were-repentance happens-What do you mean? That means anything that you were trusting that made you somehow good, all of a sudden you put behind you and said, what? “None of this stuff can work. My cathecism, my baptism, my communion, my confirmation-none of this stuff saves me!”
All the old ladies across the street that I helped with money, none of that! You repented, you changed your complete mind because you see, in one direction you were trying to salve you conscience-doing good works, thinking that worked-but when God came, and that Holy Spirit convicted you of your sinful condition-you cried out to God for salvation. That means, simultaneously it was like a repentance and an exercise of your will.
Everybody arguing over this stuff-ridiculous! Alls it mean is that anything you were trusting in before, you chucked it, and you turned to God and God saved you. It’s a big deal!
God gave Himself for the church, and that’s why you know that, and you live it experientially every day-through the up and downs.
Only A Great God Could Redeem Us From All Iniquity.
Now how did He do this? He did it by the shedding of His Own Blood.
“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7).
We don’t know how much riches He has, but we know it’s more than we can ever count. And we are talking about this Blood redemption from all iniquity . . .
That’s why when we teach the Gospel there in 1st Corinthians 15, the first four verses—we know that He died ‘according to the Scriptures,’ and I mentioned this before and I try to mention it all the time, to emphasize the blood part. Because a lot of people emphasize the death and you don’t need the blood. But according to the Scriptures He died—so for me to go into the Gospels and read how He died—there was the shedding of blood and we know that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. So it’s important to never forget about the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ—very important.
When you run into a cold spell with God and you can’t feel His presence, you know that there is something separating you from Him. That is sin! You may not even know what it is. What can we do? I plead the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m not using it like a rabbit’s foot. I believe that there is power in the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe it’s enough to cleanse my consciousness from filthy works of the flesh. It allows me to serve God. To demote it or lower it and say it’s just the death of Christ—you’ve got to watch out. Scripture with Scripture.
“Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12).
I’d say that Blood is pretty important. We talk about Old Testament priests and the High Priest once a year, going into the Holy of Holies to sprinkle the blood of the Lamb. Jesus did that one time—FINI—His Blood, His Blood. It’s very important to understand that . . . the He redeemed us from all iniquity through His Blood.
“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (I Peter 1:18-19).
How are you redeemed? By the precious Blood of the Lamb, without blemish and without spot. You see how Scripture goes with Scripture? In your mind, if you read your Old Testament enough or you went through Leviticus, you know that that Lamb had to be without blemish and without spot. Think of all the types and figures around Easter time, and you think how that Lamb was prepared—how they watched so many days, how in type the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled everything. And it all started with His baptism, where John says, “Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.” And your mind goes all the way back to Genesis where the first Adam and his wife were clothed with those animals, which I believe were lambs. Two of them. And all the way through Scriptures, God requires a lamb.
So now, here we are in 2018, we’re bought with the price He paid — and that was the shedding of His Blood — that precious Blood. That is just amazing to me . . . what He’s done for us.
- He died to redeem us from all iniquity. That’s in relation to the past.
- He redeemed us from the guilt and penalty to sin. That’s in relation to this present.
“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (I Corinthians 15:3).
Our “sins” . . . plural . . . right? He died to redeem us from all iniquity.
- He redeems us from the power and grips of sin. That is future.
“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14).
PERIOD! And that is why verse 14 stands alone. No Scripture is of private interpretation. It is a statement of fact! It says that no sin shall have dominion over you.
There’s a lot of things that we drag around that slows us down from serving God. And we get to the point where we say ‘There’s no way I can stop this, I’ll never get over this!’
And then that verse that says . . . “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” — so, what do we need? We need grace. When we are going through something that we can’t stop — we need the grace of God.
Christians are exhorted in the prayers to come boldly before the Throne . . . it’s amazing the things that people think they have to go through to get to that throne. When God says, ‘boldly” that’s what He means. We rush to Him! Flesh is flesh! When sin us bugging you and you fall to it, or whatever it is, it could be gossip or anything. When you’re done doing it, you know it’s sin, because you feel rotten. And you repeat to yourself, “I’m not going to do it again, I’m not going to do it again!” You’re going to put something on your refrigerator, so that every time you see it you say, “I’m not going to do it today, I’m not going to do it today!” And then there’s a weak moment, and you do it today. And you are defeated again, and you feel so bad. I’m just trying to tell you, the Bible says it doesn’t have to have dominion over you.
We are not talking about sinless perfection, but maturing in the Lord some things you ought to be able to have the victory over. And the things that are driving you crazy are the things you need to go to the Lord about. Stop hiding them. Just take them to the Lord. So when I think about we have been redeemed from all iniquity—that’s what it means. Past, being continually delivered in Romans here. And in relation to the future, He will deliver us from the presence of sin that is coming.
“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:22-23).
Now, if you were to take this verse and all of a sudden somebody says that the “to wit” here is italicised and doesn’t have to be here—it’s not in most manuscripts—and, therefore, we just put a period after “waiting for the adoption.” Nobody will catch that. Surely they won’t catch that. When you got born again and got saved were you adopted? It’s not a brain-twister. If you know the Scripture, you were adopted. Right? You were adopted.
So the verse said, right here, the verse says “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption” . . . Well, if I’m saved and I’m adopted and I’m joint heirs with Christ—and it stops there—that means, maybe I’m not adopted, yet. I’m waiting for the adoption! What about that? Now that makes a different story now. If I’m waiting for the adoption, somebody can come along and say ‘this is what you have to do while you’re waiting, because you ain’t got it yet. No! The last part of the verse clears everything up. It’s talking about your BODY! You body is not saved yet . . . but it will be . . . future! And there’s many more verses like this.
There is a reason in the last days that so much confusion is going on. If a person doesn’t have a solid biblical address to go to to definitely define his relation with God—that devil can rock your boat! How do we know that? Because Jesus Himself said, “It’s written, It’s written, It’s written” three times when He was tempted by the devil. So the devil will destroy “It’s written, It’s written, It’s written” any way he can. He can’t get rid of it but he sure will eliminate a whole lot of things in our understanding.
It’s important to understand with our salvation that we are saved—but the body is not saved.
HOW DOES A CHRISTIAN BECOME CLEAN AND STAY CLEAN?
How does a Christian become clean? Simple. Jesus cleanses by His Blood. We saw that in I John 1:7.
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (I John 1:7).
This refers to the initial cleasing from the guilt and sin and to our standing before God. Standing? Yes. There is standing and state. A lot of people still don’t believe this, but Scripture proves it. Standing is where? In the Lord. Our state changes—it goes up and down. But my standing is in the Lord. I’m positioned in Christ. He has made us to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
When I got saved I was born again a new creature. He didn’t use old stuff. He didn’t put new wine in old flasks. This is a new thing. All of have this if we are born again. You are saved unto the day of redemption. And that has been taken care of by our Lord—that is your standing in Him.
But the state of your condition on planet earth in this flesh? Oh man, that fluctuates. It does. So God in that state condition—we are one perfect people.
- He cleanses us with His Blood.
- He washes us with His Word. “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:26).
See, the longer we preach and teach, naturally we have this stuff in front of us all the time. So, to me it dovetails a little bit better. I’m in it all the time. I can see how it blends. And some people can’t see how it is all put together. But when it clicks, you all are going to connect this stuff with the Book, because without this you have no power, you have no cleansing—you’re going to find this out. You are going to find this out experientially. When you don’t read your Bible—sometimes for months—you see your spiritual batteries burning out.
We have peace with the Lord, and everything is going so good—we just neglect reading God’s Word here and there—and we don’t notice anything yet. And then something comes up and the word ‘N ... O ...” No, is real weak. We just can’t say no to it like we used to. Whatever it is, and other stuff starts to happen. And the devil is so slick we can never connect the dots. It takes a long time, you either hear a sermon or listen to a teacher, or listen to the Holy Spirit—because He does talk to you. He’ll ask, “What are you reading? That’s a good book, good book here, good book there—I mean, you can have religious books all over the house, like I do. You can read them all the time, but without the Word of God—the promises are only with the Book—God’s promises go with the Book. Other books are written by men that are saved, Lord willing, and they expand your mind with wisdom and different things like that—but they can’t do anything for you except expand your spiritual ramifications so that you understand some spiritual things out there—but you ain’t getting fed by them. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God!”
You must have a supernatural Book to feed your supernatural soul! And if we don’t do it, we start shrinking spiritually—you start losing power. And some people get so far away, the next thing they wonder is why they don’t like church no more ... they wonder why they don’t like the things of God. And then they start nitpicking and everybody’s a hypocrite. I hear all this all the time. Then I ask them . . . Are you reading your Bible everyday? Are you praying? And then I get the stupidest looks ... like, what in the world does that have to do with what’s going on? It’s the simplest thing that we teach Sunday school kids ... You know, how you Grow, Grow, Grow or you Shrink, Shrink, Shrink. The elementary stuff—if you forget, you’ll soon find out as a saved person—you got to get back to the Book!
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:25-26).
Cleanse it with what? the Word. The washing of the Word of God—it’s very important.
There are those that claim, that memorizing Scripture by the teenagers and everything ... that ain’t gonna help them. Well, whatever. They say, ‘they’re not going to remember this stuff’ ... whatever ...
“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word” (Psalms 119:9).
Remember the Word that you hid in your heart that you might sin, what, sin against God. Remember that verse? You learned a long time ago, it’s true.
You can have all the programs in the world, and all that, but if a child has enough of the Word of God ... that is what is going to keep him. He’ll have that certain protection. He may go away, but guess what is going to bother him? The Word of God. If the Word of God is not in there—never was in there—very difficult.
“Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:3).
- Whose doing the talking? The Lord Jesus Christ.
- They are clean by the Word.
- They are washed by the Word.
Remember? Only a great God can purify sinful men and women? We know that He cleanses by His Blood and He washes with His Word.
“Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all” (John 13:10).
Who is speaking? The Lord, trying to do some washing of some feet. And Peter so boldly said, “No way, man!” You know, recognizing His authority and everything, saying, “No, no! We wash Your feet!”
This shows us the association of humility through the washing . . . that’s the daily walk. You have to keep your feet clean, and you wash them with the water of the Word. And when we don’t do simple little things, we run into problems. That is our daily walk.
HOW DOES THE HOLY SPIRIT KEEP US CLEAN
“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:11-12).
We see how the Spirit purges things, always has—always will.
And Hebrews 9:14 is something you ought to memorize or consider. What a blessing! When you grow in the Lord, you are not going to know everything right away—sometimes it gets confusing—but you just ask God and tell Him that you need some understanding, and it will be like a light bulb that turns on. Things will start to become clear. Just like His will for your life—when you surrender to it—there will be a time when you will know it.
“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14).
A lot of argument about who wrote this—I’m still sticking with Paul. I’m telling you what, just think about Paul on the road to Damascus. Very religious man, putting people in prison, consenting to the death of people because of this Messiah, Jesus Christ. And Who meets him on that road, Jesus Christ. And what is his first prayer? “Lord!” Almost like the thief on the cross, “Lord!” Right?
Now, you think about his minister. Him going hither and yon . . . throughout the continent over there. He might have even made it to Spain. And going to all those places on the boat and everything. Do you think for a minute that faces didn’t flash through his mind of people and families being torn apart? How about Stephen? He was holding his garments while they were stoning him to death. You don’t think that the devil didn’t bring that stuff up? And then the verses that Paul talks about on how he learned stuff. What did he learn how to be? He learned to be content. Always remember that word, “learned” . . . if they took that word out, you’d just say, ‘My goodness, I must not be saved because I’m sure not learning this.’ But what you think is, when you got the whole ball of wax, after you got saved, “Why aren’t you content?”
Paul said he ‘learned’ it. That’s experience. That means that there was a time when he was not content. And when it talks about how he glories in his infirmities—that’s plural, folks—that’s not just his eyeballs. They theorize-and it makes sense-that he saw a great light, everyone around him was blinded. His eyes were probably messed up. He was blinded because of that light. He probably had some kind of eye disease, because he said that the letter he was writing now-I’m writing in my own hand-giant writing. But Paul didn’t say a ‘infirmity’, he said ‘infirmities.’ But he did have a specific ‘thorn in his flesh’given him by the devil, and he sought Christ thrice Who said, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’
Now you and I are human. Paul is human. Why might Paul have been burdened down to have to come to God for that. Why would he even do that? Because he had the power to heal people. Do you understand that? If I’m going around and I’m healing people, and I got this problem, “Lord? Hey! I’m down here. What’s going on! I’m healing everybody—how about me? A little help here. And then for God to tell him that . . . and Paul says, “Okay, It’s sufficient.” But he learned to be content.
In Christianity today it’s like, you take a pill and all of a sudden you are spiritual. You take a pill and all of a sudden you are a dynamite thing. And a lot of times with baby Christians, God has blessed with a honeymoon of sorts. Because they haven’t read the rest of the Bible yet. They don’t understand that they are like sheep to the slaughter. They don’t understand that the devil hates their guts. They don’t understand that they have to go through boot camp and develop themselves as a soldier according to this Bible. They are supposed to graduate from babes and go on up to intermediate and . . . Nowadays they jump! As soon as they are saved somebody gets a hold of them and tells them that they have to do this or that . . . Next thing you know, they are out floating around making a big name for themselves—and then later on great is the fall thereof.
Does God ever use people like that? Oh yea. Billy Sunday. He’s saved people and put them right out there. He’s saved people and actually put them in the pastorate. How disgusting is that! Where’d He get that from? Well, it happened that the person he saved was already mature, already had character as a human being, didn’t have to get over whole a lot of stuff. You see, God does things a certain way—but that’s not overall. When you read the Bible you learn that you have to go slow, you have to sit before you can stand. And people aren’t doing that any more. I’m telling you. You can go on the internet and get a PHd on the internet. I mean, if you have a good mind you can memorize everything. But when I studied this out no matter how many degrees I would get—why did I get them—what is this? A pride thing? Is this to impress people? You have to go through this because knowledge puffeth up.
So, when you think about it. You can’t add one cubit to your height spiritually . . . God does. So it doesn’t matter how big your head it—it becomes top heavy. Only God, only God elevates the people that He wants to elevate. And you got to pay a price.
He purifies a sinful humanity with the blood and the washing, and He purges everything with His Spirit. Let’s look at that verse again . . .
“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14).
You need to circle that, highlight it, do whatever you need to do with it, but man, I like it!
How much more? More than what? Go through everything, go through the chapter about the blood of bulls and goats. He’s saying you have something now. I’m telling you . . . I’m telling you! It’s not just an atonement—at-one-ment—once a year. Man! There is more than that!
- You are together with God.
- You are in the family of God.
- You are baptized into His body. There is no way you can get out!
- You are sealed forever and ever and ever ever.
- You are joint heirs with Christ.
- You are a child of the King.
So how in the world can you ever do anything in the flesh when the flesh is wicked as hell?
It tells you right here what took place about the Blood. What does the Blood do? Look at it . . . ‘purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.’
Paul could serve God because that blood purged his conscience from dead works. And when you get up, and you messed up all day, and you are dragging your behind to the next morning and wondering will God do anything with you again . . . think about your position and your standing in Christ . . . and you realize you messed up in you ‘state’, so what do you do? You say, “Oh God, be merciful. I’m sorry. I let this flesh, I let it get over me again . . .”
I’m telling you what, He gets the birds singing in your soul again. The next thing you know you’ll forget that that thing even happened. And you’ll be serving a holy, righteous God in this wicked, stinking flesh. And how can you do this? ‘The Blood of Christ purges your conscience from dead works.’ You get a hold of that, I’m telling you ... it’ll help you out! I had to figure out, ‘how in the world can I serve God? Am I like a hypocrite? I mean, what’s going on here? How can I have so much peace? Because I kept reflecting back on something I already confessed to a while back and got under the blood. I keep trying to pull it back up, to figure out how in the world I can serve God. Well, I can do this because the filth ain’t here . . . it is gone! The Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin! It’s gone! It’s Cleansed! I’m clean!
When you forget about that cleansing of the Blood when you were saved, when you forget about that purging through His Spirit, and the Blood, of the conscience, and you forget about the washing that God tells you you need — you can run into a lot of problems — depression being one of them. It’s not God ... now God can allow things to happen to get us to where we need to be ... but most of the time we cause our own problems — and it’s the simplest thing, like — ‘Did you get up and read your Bible?’ ‘Well, I got a little busy today.’ ‘When’s the last time you read it?’ ‘Uhm, a while back.’
So, in other words you are not feeding your new person, but you are feeding your outside person more. You are feeding your outside person more because you are depressed, and you are discouraged. This new person needs to be revived on the inside, but you are majoring on the outside. When you start feeding the inside again—washing yourself with the Word of God—When God reveals something to you as you are reading the Bible—you say you are sorry and you go on and keep reading, I mean, it’s a love letter from God. It’s His Word. If you don’t do it you will pay.
Only A Great God could redeem us from all iniquity, could purify sinful men and women, could choose a peculiar people.
So, how does the Holy Spirit keep us clean? How does He equip us to serve God in our lives? He does it through the washing of the Word of God. We read it to learn, and when it shows us where we come short — we acknowledge it and He continues to wash us and make us fit for the Master’s use.
"What am I bid, good people", he cried, "Who starts the bidding for me?" "One dollar, one dollar, Do I hear two?" "Two dollars, who makes it three?" "Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three,"
But, No, From the room far back a gray bearded man Came forward and picked up the bow, Then wiping the dust from the old violin And tightening up the strings, He played a melody, pure and sweet As sweet as the angel sings.
The music ceased and the auctioneer With a voice that was quiet and low, Said "What now am I bid for this old violin?" As he held it aloft with its' bow.
"One thousand, one thousand, Do I hear two?" "Two thousand, Who makes it three?" "Three thousand once, three thousand twice, Going and gone", said he.
The audience cheered, But some of them cried, "We just don't understand." "What changed its' worth?" Swift came the reply. "The Touch of the Masters Hand."
"And many a man with life out of tune All battered and bruised with hardship Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd Much like that old violin
A mess of pottage, a glass of wine, A game and he travels on. He is going once, he is going twice, He is going and almost gone.
But the Master comes, And the foolish crowd never can quite understand, The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought By the Touch of the Masters' Hand.
- Myra Brooks Welch
study
Good way to start my day, thanks for sharing Him!
God bless!
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