Dearly Beloved
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It Is Not Secret

Dearly beloved of God, the Scriptures are the Word of God and it is the Word of Truth; it expresses God's will to us. You would think this truth is a secret to many folks today.

Experiences are not the guarantee of truth; God stands behind His Word and He says that it is the Word of Truth. The Word of God is our only reference for truth if we are to know His will. It is the only guarantee for truth concerning spiritual matters.

“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but [words] which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual [words].” II Corinthians 2:12 and 13

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What Good Thing Will He Withhold from Us?

Dearly beloved of God, what good thing will God withhold from them that love Him?

The Church Epistles reveal that we were justified by believing concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and by his accomplishments. This was God’s idea and He made it available by the good pleasure of His will by grace.

Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this evil world according to the will of God, our Father. God called us by the grace of Christ. The gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ is the good news of the grace of God to all who believe on him.

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IF It Be Thy Will

Dearly beloved, too often people blame God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, for what the so-called god of this world does.

How often do we hear people say, “IF it be Thy will….” We don’t have to say, “If it is God’s will…then so and so.” God revealed His will to us by giving us His Word. He plainly declares His will; He had it written down so we could believe it.

For example, insurance companies describe calamities such as earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc., as acts of God. The god of this world is behind this destruction; he is the one that makes the world a wilderness.

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The Antidote for All Your Worries

Dearly beloved of God, are you distressed in your mind over something? We call that “worry” in English. It is an emotional state of being troubled, disturbed, harassed, full of cares, anxious, or vexed. Worry can wear you out, even kill you if you give in to it.

Sooner or later we all have to deal with these feelings. Some people are overwhelmed by them and seek professional help, while some people deal with them with alcohol, drugs, or medications. A noted Dr. said, “More than half our hospital beds are occupied by people with nervous and emotional troubles.”

Most people are conformed to this world, and there are plenty of things to worry about if you walk in the course of this evil world; the adversary sets that course.

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Good Hope in Grace

Dearly beloved of the Lord, thank God that He gave us good hope through grace. He called us in Christ as a first fruit unto salvation by sanctification of the spirit and believing the truth.

Those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, will not accept the love of the truth so that they might be saved. There is a time coming that this age of grace will end, and a period of judgment called the Day of the Lord will follow it.

Don’t be disturbed by anyone who tells you that the Church of the Grace of God will go through the Day of the Lord. We will be at rest at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his messengers of power when he comes to give vengeance against those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel regarding our Lord Jesus Christ.

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It Is Memorial Day

Dearly beloved of God, it is Memorial Day so celebrate Christ Jesus the Lord’s victory for us.

As a result of his victory, we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. We are completely filled in Christ, blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. We are heirs of salvation and have the hope of eternal life because of his victory.

Whatever we may be facing in our lives, we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus our Lord, and nothing can separate us from the love of God that is him. Be fully persuaded of this reality, dearly beloved, it is the truth revealed to us by our Heavenly Father.

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How Does God Open Our Eyes?

Dearly beloved of God, the Father wants the eyes of our understanding enlightened since we have been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ and born of God's spirit.

The moment we were saved from Adam’s condemnation, we were sealed with the promised holy spirit. The spirit is the down payment of that salvation, and it is a token of our inheritance until Christ returns to redeem us on the day of redemption.

This is Ephesians 1:15-18 from the Working Translation, A Journey Through the Acts and Epistles, by Rev. Walter Cummins. The Heavenly Father instructed Paul to write:

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He is Faithful that Promised

Dearly beloved, God is faithful to His Word; He does not change. He is not like the moon, whose shadow changes from night to night; there is no variableness in Him. He means what He says, and He says what He means. He is light, not darkness! He is faithful that promised!

Our Father says, “… that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing means nothing; believe it! You are never alone. God is always present to deliver us. We have His Word on it.

God sent the Lord Jesus Christ to fulfill His Word from the new birth realities to the new heavens and earth, and all that is in between.

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Free Things Are Ours In Christ

Dearly beloved of God, God will freely give us all things with His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

God called us in Christ. In Christ and by his accomplishments we are justified, redeemed, saved, and we will be glorified with him. There is no more condemnation coming to us in Christ. He delivered us from the wrath to come. We are righteous before God, clothed in Christ’s righteousness. Nothing can separate us from the Lord Jesus Christ. We are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

In Christ we became the sons of God. In Christ, we are holy and without blame before God. Now we are highly favored by the Father. We are forgiven our sins by the riches of grace which He abounded to us.

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Justified by Jesus Christ’s Accomplishments

Dearly beloved of God, the One True God our Heavenly Father, is just to us. At one time we were His enemies, dead in sin, ungodly, and His enemies, but while we were deserving of His wrath He showed us mercy and grace and forgiveness, and He justified us. Now we have the hope of obtaining the glory of God.

At one time no Jew or Gentile was just before God; they were all under the reign of sin and death. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no not one.”

Thank God for His mercy, His great grace, and forgiveness. He set the standard by which He would justify us, and He determined that it would be by our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ and by his accomplishments.

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The Hope of the Church and the Lord’s Day

Dearly beloved of God, I thank God for the great grace we have received in Christ Jesus our Lord. God, our Father, planned for this age of grace by His own counsel, and He brought His plan to pass by the good pleasure of His will.

This administration of the grace of God began when Jesus Christ sent the promise of the Father, the gift of holy spirit following his ascension into the heavenly realm and seating at God’s right hand.

We confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead and God saves us. Salvation is by the Lord Jesus Christ's accomplishments. God becomes our Father and we become His children, and our end eternal life and the hope of the glory of God.

This administration will end when Christ returns to gather together the members of his body, the Church, to meet him in the air. From that time forward we will be with the Lord.

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Walk Worthily

Dearly beloved of God, God gave us His Word to interpret His will to us. The only way we can know the good pleasure of His will is to know what He revealed to us in His Word. The Word of God came from His mouth, not man’s; it is God-breathed and profitable to us. God’s Word equips us to walk with Him so we can do His will in our lives.

How are the children of God to walk with their Heavenly Father?

The Word of God reveals that we are to walk in “newness of life”; we are to “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

“Newness of life” and “after the spirit” refer to new birth realities that are ours in Christ. One usage of “spirit” puts “spirit” for the complete new birth reality. It includes the spirit of sonship, along with our sonship rights, sonship ability, sonship privileges – the complete new birth reality – by the figure of speech synecdoche.

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The Cares of Life

Dearly beloved of God, we should not be distracted by the things of this world. The things of this evil age only make us anxious, and full of cares; this distraction only burdens us.

The Lord Jesus spoke about this in Matthew 6: 19-34. In verses 25, the words “take no thought” are the Greek word “merimnaō.” It means “to be anxious; to be troubled with cares, to be full of anxiety which divides up and distracts the mind, to be full of cares, anxious; be full of anxious or distracting care.”

The Lord opens the subject by giving them an example commonly understood by them in their culture. It is an Orientalism.

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.” We equate treasure to money, but the Lord was not speaking of money, but of their thoughts. Bishop K.C. Pillai gave this explanation of the Orientalism.

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New Things Have Come and More Are Coming

Dearly beloved of God, when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, we went from being children of wrath by nature, to becoming the children of God, and having the hope of receiving the glory of God. Now that’s quite a turnaround, isn’t it?!

In Christ, new things have come to us. Some of them are a present tense reality, and others await future fulfillment. It took God nine Church epistles to reveal them to us, so this article will certainly not exhaust them all. Let’s look at a few of them.

God chose us in Christ and by what he accomplished for us and is in us. He determined beforehand (from Genesis 3:15 forward) that Christ would be the solution to the overthrows that previously occurred. He planned it by the counsel of His will; in fact it was the good pleasure of His will to do it for us.

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Salvation and Glory Versus Wrath

Dearly beloved, our Father called us by the gospel of God concerning His Son to obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ at his coming.

He has “not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.”

Three times, God reveals that those who believe concerning the Lord Jesus Christ have been delivered from the wrath to come:

Romans 5:9-11: “Much more then, being now justified by His [Jesus Christ’s] blood, we shall be saved from wrath [the wrath of God] through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved [from the wrath of God] by His life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom we have now received the atonement [the reconciliation to God].”

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The Power of Life and Death

Dearly beloved of God, what is our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ? Why is his resurrection out from among all the other dead people so important?

As the Word of God clearly states, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Death is what? It is the “last ENEMY that shall be destroyed.” At this time it is still an enemy, it is not a welcomed friend. Revelation 20 reveals the time this will occur.

God gave Adam a commandment; the day that he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would surely die. Death is not life in any form or manner; it is the loss of life.

God told him that he would, “…return to the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Death results in corruption, not glory. The body returns to the earth, not heaven. The soul life expires. The person’s life ends, not begins. Read: Psalm 6:4, 5 and 13:6 and 49:6-9; Ecclesiastes 9:5,6,10; and Isaiah 38:18, 19 for starters. Furthermore, I Corinthians 15:50 reveals that corruption does not inherit incorruption.

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No Disappointed Expectations

Dearly beloved of God, anyone who confesses the Lord Jesus with their mouth and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead will be saved and will never again come into condemnation! No one who believes on him will have any disappointed expectations.

The moment we believed in the Christ; God sealed us with the promised holy spirit. You can read about “the promise of the Father,” in Luke 24:49, which Jesus Christ said he would send. He said that when they received this promise they would “be endued with power from on high.”

This spirit, called “the gift of holy spirit,” “the spirit of God,” “the spirit of sonship,” “the first fruits of the spirit,” “the spirit from Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you,” the Lord Jesus said was to be “born of the spirit.” He went so far as to say, “You must be born again [begotten from above.]

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The Power of the Resurrection

Dearly beloved of God, the events surrounding Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead are thrilling to say the least. For the first and only time in history, a human being, the second Adam, Jesus Christ was raised to life after being dead for three days and three nights – never to die again.

God, Jesus Christ's Father, validated that he was indeed His Son by raising him out from among all the other dead people!

The Lord Jesus Christ’s new body was no longer mortal and subject to death. He was the first fruit from the dead, and when he comes again to gather his Church, His Father has given him the power to raise the dead in Christ to life and transfigure us to have glorious bodies like his glorious body.

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The Validating Sign

Dearly beloved of God, what is the sign that Jesus was the Christ, the only begotten Son of God? Is there proof that this man was the Son of God?

When the Passover was at hand, early in his ministry, the Lord Jesus went into the Temple and he cleansed His Father’s House from the abuses of merchandising.

The Jews asked Jesus, “What sign do you show us, seeing that you do these things?” John 2:18

Jesus answered them saying, "‘Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ But he spoke of the Temple of His body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.” Verses 19-22

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God Exalted His Son

Dearly beloved of God, after exalting His Son by raising him from the dead, God made the same Jesus that they crucified both Lord and Christ. He declared Jesus Christ the Lord as His Son by raising him out from among all the dead people.

Hebrews 11 sets forth a list of believers who were “Hall of Fame” quality; they were faithful to God, believing His Word until they all died without receiving the promises God made them, but they will receive them when Christ returns and raises them to life again.

Those old testament saints lived their lives in light of God’s promises seeing them in the distance as becoming a reality. They lived as strangers and pilgrims on the earth confessing His promises because He was faithful that called them. None of them has inherited eternal life as of yet; they are all dead awaiting the resurrection unto life (See Hebrews 11:13).

However, Jesus Christ did rise from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and he sat down at God’s right hand. This is why Hebrews 12:2 addresses him as “the author and finisher of the faith.” He is the only man to begin and to finish the course of believing God’s promise to the end of actually receiving the promise of eternal life thus far.

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The Times Are Gonna be Changin’

Dearly beloved of God, the times in which we live are evil, but do not faint; that is all going to change!

The certainty that Christ is coming to save and redeem the members of his body, the Church, his dearly beloved brethren, is as certain as you are reading these words. He is coming!

These evil times are not eternal; they are but for a fleeting moment. They produce “light affliction” for us compared to “the far more exceeding and eternal heavy weight of glory” the Father has laid up for His dearly beloved children.

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The Victory that Overcomes the World

Dearly beloved of the Lord, behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God.

We used to be part of this evil world, but that changed when we became sons of God. The world loves their own: the evil, the ungodly, the wicked, the lawless, the sinners; they are of the world, and because of this, they do not know us because they did not want to know the Christ. Don’t be discouraged by the lousy conversation of the wicked.

Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when the Lord Jesus Christ shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, and every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.

We will obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ; we will be glorified together with him.

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There is Only One Question

Dearly beloved of God, the tempter confronts people with “Is it written? Yea, did God really say such and such?” The Lord Jesus responded to him when he was tempted by him in the wilderness with, “It is written,” and he quoted him what God said. The only question we need answered is, “What is written?”

If you know someone who knows more about spiritual matters than the Lord Jesus Christ, then by all means, listen to them.

Everything out of the adversary’s mouth is a lie; he is the father of lies and there is no truth in him. If you decide to listen to him, he will deceive you with his craftiness to the end you are corrupted from the simplicity and integrity that is in Christ Jesus and his accomplishments.

He talked Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, out of God’s Word before they had sinned, and their deception brought mankind under the condemnation of death dealing sin; do you think you can fare better than they did?

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God’s Timetable for the Ages

Dearly beloved of God, the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the law in order to accomplish salvation and make it available, and he will yet fulfill every word God spoke concerning him; he will accomplish all of His Father’s will. God revealed the end from the beginning; He determined the timetable for the ages.

God raised His beloved Son from the dead and he ascended into heaven; he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men! He triumphed over the power of darkness and delivered us from his reign over us! He stripped the principalities and powers that once ruled over us and exposed them openly and he triumphed over them!

The book of Ephesians addressed to the Church reveals that the Christ will head up all things in heaven and earth in the administration of the fullness of times; this time is yet future.

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