April 2017 "Dearly Beloved" Articles
Dearly Beloved 4/29/17 "Light Makes Manifest"
Light Makes Manifest
Dearly beloved, if we know and understand the revealed Word of God, we will know the will of God. I know, that may seem so elementary; yet far too many have never been taught this wonderful truth. Others have unfortunately overlooked its significance.
Let’s take something as basic as who God is for example. How do we know who He is, what He is like, or how does He operate?
He reveals Himself to us by various names and titles and descriptions He reveals to us in His Word; He does not leave it up to us to guess or imagine. Let’s consider a few.
He says that He is Elohim, the Creator. Then He reveals that stands in a covenant relationship with those He has created as Jehovah. He revealed to Moses, “I am that I am” or I will become what I will become, meaning whatever His people need.
He reveals who He is by various Jehovah titles or redemptive names that He reveals in the Old Testament: He is Jehovah who sees and provides, who heals His people, who is our canopy, who sanctifies His people, who is our peace, who is our righteousness, who is the Lord of hosts, and who is Jehovah our Shepherd. These titles describe what He is like.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/28/17 "Muscle Building"
Muscle Building
Do you know why there is so much division today beloved? Because the adversary wants it. He wants to cut us off from one another and isolate us. He promotes division for his purposes, not God’s.
If he succeeds with his campaign of division, to get God’s people to bite and devour one another, who will be left to edify, comfort, and exhort us?
If he succeeds, who would be left to love us, to edify us, to have the same care for one another, to minister healing to us, to pray for us, to speak words of spiritual life to others, to teach us God’s Word, to give, to support, to help, to comfort, to serve; to provide the benefits that each member of the body of Christ can provide? He certainly does not want that, does he, but our Father and Lord do.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/27/17 "Spiritual Things"
Spiritual Things
Dearly beloved, God chose us in Christ that we should be holy and without blemish before Him. In Christ, God gave us sonship to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will.
In choosing us to be His children, we became His heirs. Beloved, our Heavenly Father has truly highly favored us. How highly favored are we in His eyes? He is blessed, and He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/27/17 "Power Over Death"
Power Over Death
Beloved, all flesh is like grass; here today and gone tomorrow. Adam brought the reign of sin and death upon all men. All people are mortal, meaning subject to death. It is appointed unto man once to die. History attests to it, as does highly regarded science, as do our personal experiences. With such a common reality, you would think that more people would be interested in being delivered from it.
The reality is that when people die, their life is over; they corrupt and turn to dust. They perish. Wise men die as do fools. Both the high and the low, the rich and the poor together shall perish.
There is definitely a need for redemption from the grave, is there not? There is one and only one release from the state of death: Christ Jesus the Lord.
Through his obedience to God, he gave his life to pay for the condemnation that Adam brought upon the human race. He takes people who were dead in sin, and by undeserved, divine favor, he saves them and gives them life; eternal life.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/26/17 "The Heavenly Realm"
The Heavenly Realm
Dearly beloved, our Heavenly Father has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm; every, not some, not most, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm! There is not a single spiritual blessing in this realm that our Father did not bless us with in Christ.
This is the same realm in which God caused Christ to sit at His right side after He raised him from the dead by His mighty power. He seated him far above every ruler and authority and power and lordship, even every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the coming age. He put all things in subjection under his feet and made him head over all things in the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all things in all people.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/25/17 "The Helmet of Salvation"
The Helmet of Salvation
Dearly beloved, God raised Jesus from the dead and He made him both Lord and Christ. This is the crux of our salvation. He is the first fruit of those who will rise from the dead.
Enoch spoke of the time when the Lord will come with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment against the ungodly and all they have done against God and His people.
Abraham looked forward to the coming of Christ and he believed in the resurrection from the dead.
The Lord Jesus quoted Moses concerning it and he taught about the time he would raise the dead.
David prophesied of it. Isaiah, Daniel and the prophets spoke of it. The apostles Peter and Paul wrote about it. God raised His Son from the dead!
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/24/17 "How Do We Gain Spiritual Understanding?"
How Do We Gain Spiritual Understanding?
Dearly beloved, the Apostle Paul wrote toward the end of his life that all Asia turned away from him, meaning from the revelation of the Word of God that God gave him.
How can we trust early church fathers, church history, or decisions that church councils made if they say something contrary to the revelation that God gave him? If we are to gain spiritual understanding we must go back to the original source that God gave man for our believing – the Word of God.
To get the Word of God as He originally gave it to holy men of God, it will have to interpret itself in the verse right where it is written, or in the context where the verse appears. If we cannot find the interpretation in the verse or its context, we will have to consider records where the subject is discussed previously.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/23/17 "Truth or Lie?"
Truth or Lie?
Dearly beloved, we can’t learn about the spiritual realm from philosophy, tradition, poetry, movies, music, by our experiences, feelings, preconceived ideas, or from someone’s opinion. Every one of these references for learning begins with man – not God. They could be right or they could be in error. God revealed the answers we need concerning the spiritual realm and matters that pertain to it in His Word.
We do not start with any of the above references and try to reconcile spiritual matters. You cannot look at darkness and try to determine what is light. You start with the light and it will expose the darkness. If we want to understand spiritual matters we must start with the Word of God and hold all else up to it if we are to learn the truth.
God says what He means and we can take Him at His Word. His Word is trustworthy. The adversary is the liar, the seducer, the deceiver.
Regardless of the media he uses to convey his lies, you cannot trust his words. He uses words to seduce and deceive, not to educate us about spiritual matters or give us spiritual understanding. His lies always lead to captivity and bondage.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/23/17 "Confident in His Promise"
Confident in His Promise
Dearly beloved of the Lord, man is not capable of living forever and not seeing corruption. Myths and legends may say that they do, but that is not reality. People die, the same as animals. When we lose life, we perish, not live forever. We enter a worse state, that of corruption and decay.
How can a man with the limits of his five senses see the unseen? How can he by his intelligence know what occurs in death or will come to pass in the future? He is not capable of knowing these things innately. If he is to know about the unknown, God will have to reveal it to him. He gives us revelation knowledge of these unknown realities in His Word. Apart from revelation, no one knows anything about death and beyond.
You may wonder why I am so confident that in the face of death, there is a release from it for some. Beloved, the Word of God reveals that thus far the only man that has risen from the dead, never to die again: the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only man that has ascended up to heaven [see John 3:13]. He is the first fruit to rise out from among the dead people. He is the one that God gave the power and authority that is capable of delivering people from the clutches of death and giving them eternal life. The last enemy he will destroy is death.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/22/17 "The Power of Words"
The Power of Words
Dearly beloved, our Heavenly Father’s will is reliable. He clearly reveals it to us with His words. His words are true and faithful. He is able and willing to perform them and it is the good pleasure of His will to do so.
His Word is a Living Word that provides us with spiritual life, answers and deliverance. He says that His Word is profitable and that it educates us about His divine power by which He has given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. He says that He gave us exceeding great and precious promises, in order that by these we could be partakers of the divine nature.
God is Spirit, and as we know, we cannot see, hear, smell, taste or touch spirit. We can’t see Him, much less know His will unless He reveals it to us. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but what He has revealed belongs unto us and to our children forever. No man knows the things of God, but the spirit of God, and He gave us the spirit of truth so that we could know and understand His will.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/21/17 "What Is the Profit of Love?"
What Is the Profit of Love?
Dearly beloved, we should be merciful as our Father is merciful. The word translated “merciful” means “tenderly compassionate”. He is even kind to the unthankful and to the evil.
The Lord said if we only love those who love us, what thanks have we? Even sinners and the Gentiles love those that love them. Therefore, we ought to imitate our Father’s love. He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for us while we were still sinners, ungodly, and His enemies. Pharisees wouldn’t dirty their hands with people such as these.
What is the profit of love? The power of love changes lives.
The Lord Jesus came to make his Father known to his own. He came to declare Him, and he did so by his words and his works; he always did the will of His Father – the things that pleased Him.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/20/17 "Fulfilled?"
Fulfilled?
Dearly beloved, how do you measure the value of one’s life? The world measures a person’s value in dollars. God measures a person’s value by their giving; how they benefit others.
The greatest example of giving I know of is Jesus Christ; he gave his very life for our benefit. He also gave people the Word of God. He gave people deliverance as well. He lived love; that was his motivation. He lived to do the will of God, to please His Father.
What is the key to finding fulfillment in your life? It does not come because of a six-figure income, a big home, millions in the bank; the key to fulfillment is giving to benefit other peoples’ lives.
God teaches us these truths time and time again. Take the gift of holy spirit that God gives us at the time of the new birth, it gives eternal life to those who receive it. This spirit can also be manifested nine different ways and each manifestation provides a different godly profit.
The one who decides to give by walking in the spirit gets much more back; the ones they minister to get deliverance, the person who manifests gets the fruit of the spirit. God also lays up rewards for their giving.
All the things of God work like this, it does not matter if we are talking about the new birth, or the plant kingdom, or financial giving, etc.
Our value to others is measured by our giving; how we benefit them. The love of God, as we renew our minds to God’s Word, is what motivates us to give.
God so loved that He gave His only begotten Son for us, so that we could have life. If we want to be fulfilled we ought to imitate Him. As we benefit others we will find ourselves; we will find fulfillment. Such as we have, we give, and we will get back pressed down, shaken together, and running over.
Whether it is a word fitly spoken, ministering to others, prayer for others, a kind deed, witnessing, tithing or abundant sharing, whatever; we give such as we have so that others can live. Live love and find yourself. The only way to be fulfilled is to be a giver.
Dearly Beloved 4/19/17 "Something to Think About"
Something to Think About
Dearly beloved, when you read the Church Epistles, you read statements like: complete in Christ, all sufficiency in all things, the righteousness of God in Christ, justified freely through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, peace with God in Christ, in Christ you stand in God’s grace, God will freely give us all things with Christ, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, our Father has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, chosen in Christ to be holy and without blame before the Father, placed as sons in Christ, God made us dearly beloved in Christ, saved in Christ, in Christ we are sealed with the promised holy spirit, joint-heirs with Christ, glorified together with Christ, our inheritance is in Christ, died with Christ, raised with Christ, quickened together with Christ, seated with Christ, created in Christ Jesus, one new man in Christ, access to God by Christ, near to God in Christ, more than conquerors through Christ, pray in the name of Jesus Christ, if any man does not have the spirit of Christ he is not His, grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord, called to obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ…and so, so much more.
These things are worth thinking about, wouldn’t you agree? Hold these truths in your mind, hide them in your heart, and they will transform you beloved; prove them in your life as you boldly walk out on these truths and live in their power. You can do all things through Christ Jesus our Lord.
You have all these things dearly beloved, and so, so much more. Beloved, you are as he is!
Dearly Beloved 4/18/17 "Grace and Peace"
Grace and Peace
Dearly beloved saints, grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. We could stop right there couldn’t we?!
God is our Father now. Our Father set us apart, He sanctified us by the gift of the holy spirit we received at the time of the new birth. The gift of holy spirit makes us saints. Before we confessed Jesus as Lord and believed that God raised him from the dead, we were like all other people; our standing was in Adam, and we were dead in sin. We are no longer of the common lot of people; now we are His saints.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/17/17 "Some Things Never Change"
Some Things Never Change
Some things just never change, do they dearly beloved? God says, “I am the Lord, I change not”. He never changes. He says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.”
He is the source of every good and perfect gift. He is light; not darkness. I hate it when we lose power and the lights go out; you can’t see! God is light and He makes it possible to see spiritual matters by the light of His Word.
Furthermore, He does not vary from one day to the next like people do, or like the adversary does. The adversary works in darkness. God is light; such perfect light that He does not even cast a shadow when He turns; there is no darkness in Him at all.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/16/17 "What a Day!"
What a Day!
He is risen, dearly beloved! Mary first saw him while it was yet dark, on the 18th, after she ran to tell Peter and the other disciple that she thought they had taken Jesus’ body from the tomb.
The two men ran to the sepulcher and saw the about one hundred pounds of undisturbed grave wrappings, which had hardened from the myrrh and aloes. The wrappings had hardened after three days and three nights like a cocoon around Jesus' body. They were still in the same position as when they had contained his dead body. The napkin had been removed from the face and they could see that the mummy was empty; the Lord was not in them!
After they left, the Lord appeared to Mary in the garden. Mary then told the disciples that she saw Jesus and that he had spoken to her, but they did not believe her.
Early morning, after the rising of the sun on the 18th, the women that had followed Jesus came to embalm him because they only saw the burial that Joseph of Arimathea gave the Lord. He had wrapped him in a sheet (Greek: sindon). They didn’t see the proper burial that Nicodemus and his servants gave the Lord. They wound his body with about a hundred pounds of strips of linen cloth mixed with the sappy myrrh and the powdery aloes. They mummified his body.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/15/17 "Because..."
Because...
Dearly beloved, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Nothing can separate us from the love of God because of the accomplishments of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because of the price he paid, there is therefore no more condemnation, no more judgment from God against those who are in Christ Jesus. God justified us freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/14/17 "The Certainty of His Promise"
The Certainty of His Promise
Dearly beloved of God, the Lord Jesus was crucified on the fourteenth of Nisan, the time the Passover Lamb was killed. He died about mid-afternoon, and he was in the grave for three days and three nights fulfilling the prophesy of Jonah. The Lord told the scribes and Pharisees that this was the sign that evil and adulterous generation would witness.
Since he died on the fourteenth, he arose from the dead three days and three nights on the seventeenth.
Israel numbered their days; the first day of their week is our Sunday, and their seventh day of the week is our Saturday. Their day began at sunset, unlike ours which begins at midnight. God raised His Son from the dead on the seventeenth of Nisan before sunset. The seventeenth was their Sabbath, our Saturday.
The Lord Jesus came from King David’s linage. “Of this man’s seed hath God according to His promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus”, Acts 13:23 records. God marked out Jesus as His Son when He raised him from the dead, and Jesus will never return to that place of corruption! He was not left in the grave to corrupt; God raised him from the dead according to His promise!
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/12/17 "Deliverance and Believing"
Deliverance and Believing
Dearly beloved of God, whether you read about the first Passover in Exodus 12, or in II Chronicles 30:15-20, when Hezekiah found the Law and they kept the Passover, or today when we partake of communion; healing is as available as the forgiveness of sins.
The Lord Jesus bore our sins and our sicknesses on the cross. He was reserved for this express purpose and his offering was the last one that will ever need to be offered for us.
Once you realize that Jesus Christ was crucified to accomplish God’s will for us, which is redemption from sin and sickness and death, you can receive the benefits of that redemption as you believe what he accomplished. Everything the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished is available to us by the grace of God; from salvation and the new birth to healing, it is all available to us by God’s grace, His undeserved, Divine favor and friendly willingness to bless His children.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/11/17 "What Cross Did He Bare?"
What Cross Did He Bare?
Dearly beloved, Matthew 27:27-32, Mark 15:16-21, and Luke 23:20-26 all say that Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry Jesus’ cross from the judgement hall; but John 19:13-17, says something quite different.
Simon indeed physically carried Jesus’ cross to the place they crucified him, while the soldiers dragged Jesus through the streets. After some 40 hours of beatings and both excruciating mental and physical abuse, he could not have physically carried his cross.
His back looked like a newly plowed field after receiving 80 lashes with a cat of nine tales with bits of bone and metal in the tips.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/6/17 "The Second Adam, and So Much More"
The Second Adam, and So Much More
Dearly beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ was the second Adam. Like the first Adam, he was perfect genetically. His birth was supernatural. Mary conceived in her womb; not the usual place conception takes place. She had never known a man, meaning she had not had sexual intercourse to the end of conceiving. Where did she get the seed to conceive? The power of the Holy Spirit of supplied it. This child was holy, the only begotten Son of God. The angel told Mary to name him Jesus.
Like the first Adam, Jesus was a man and partook of flesh and blood. He was in all things made like his brethren. He was of the seed of Abraham, and the angel told Mary that he would sit on David’s throne and he would rule over the house of Jacob forever. Jesus was a Judean out of King David’s line. He is called the son of man many times in the Word of God because he was a man, in fact he was the second Adam.
The notable difference between the first Adam and the second is that the second Adam was not born with the spirit of God. John 1, reveals that the spirit of God descended on him when he was baptized by John, when he was about thirty years old.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/5/17 "Joseph's Believing"
Joseph’s Believing
Dearly beloved, the Lord Jesus intended to eat the Passover meal with the twelve, but he never did. Instead he was the Passover Lamb that year.
The Lord Jesus died on the 14th of Nisan, which was the day the Passover lamb was killed and prepared. The Hebrew day began at sunset, which was the 15th. It was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and it was a high day or special sabbath. It would be like our Christmas falling on Wednesday; Wednesday would then be a high or special day.
The Lord died after he had uttered the words, “It is finished.” He had finished the work of redemption.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/4/17 "What Do You Expect"
What Do You Expect?
Dearly beloved, who determined there would be a Passover in the first place? God! The original Passover pointed to the true Passover lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ. Israel’s deliverance from captivity and bondage by partaking of the Passover lamb teaches us of the deliverance that is ours in Christ.
The next morning the captives were freed! The plague passed over them and they left without one feeble knee among them. Was their lamb in itself some mystifying powerful animal? No, it was a lamb. The power was in the God who gave them the revelation to believe; He delivered them!
We should be no less expectant of deliverance than they were. The same God gave us the memorial of communion and tells us to partake of the cup and the bread in remembrance of the work of Christ, our Passover Lamb. We will not be disappointed in our expectation in him! He died for our sins and we were healed by his stripes; the beatings and torture he endured for us.
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/3/17 "Whose Lamb Was Better"
Whose Lamb Was Better?
Was their lamb better than ours, dearly beloved? At the first Passover God told Moses to have the children of Israel kill a lamb, put the blood on the doorposts and lintel and eat the entire lamb and the destroyer would pass over their house. The next day over one and a half million people left the captivity of Egypt without a feeble knee among them.
The Lord Jesus was our Passover Lamb. He was the Lamb of God. The Lord Jesus bore our sins and sicknesses on his cross. He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. Was their lamb better than ours?
Our Lamb was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we were healed. Surely he bore our sicknesses and pains. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all and he bore the sin of many; he bore all our iniquities. Was our Lamb less than theirs?
Read more ...Dearly Beloved 4/1/17 "The Power of the Truth"
The Power of the Truth
Martin Luther spoke of the power of the living Word, dearly beloved. He was speaking of the mass, but the truth of what he said can be applied to every man-made religious dogma.
He said, “It ought to be abolished…but let no one be torn from it by force. We must leave the matter in God’s hands. His Word must act, and not we. And why so, you will ask? Because I do not hold men’s hearts in my hand as the potter holds the clay. We have the right to speak: we have not the right to act [He was speaking of acting with violence]. Let us preach; the rest belongs to God. Were I to employ force, what should I gain? Grimace, formality, aping [mere imitating; vain repetition], human ordinances, and hypocrisy.
God does more by His Word alone than you and I and all the world by our united strength. God lays hold upon the heart; and when the heart is taken, all is won.
Read more ...