Ideas about the Kingdom of the Heavens around us and the unity of believers in Christ within it
It is our unity that makes Jesus visible to the world in us. It was practical unity that made the Jerusalem church attractive. Restoration of that unity was a precondition to the effective preaching of Steven and Phillip.
Many of God’s promises to us are given to the Church together, collectively. They become effective for us individually only as we are living in love, as a functioning part of the Body of Christ.
What happens to you affects me. If we choose to work together, the Body of Christ is healthy and effective. If we choose not to recognize each other, we are still one, but the Body of Christ os diseased.
A reader recently asked some very perceptive questions about my views concerning prayer, prayer burdens, and prayer for national sins. Here, I am publishing my answers to those questions. (The reader also asked some personal questions, which I omit from this posting): You asked: “Also that what matters is your relationship with the Lord not what denomination someone is or…
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A God who Speaks, An abuse of God's image, Conversation with God, Emotions, Events and Signs, God Speaks to Us, God's rationality, His Children, His Friends, Human Rationality, In prayer, Language and Speech, Personal Background, Prophecy, Rejecting God, Replacing Relationship with Morality, The Bible, To live in unity, Trusting sight over God's words
The three persons who eternally and inseparably comprise the One God are God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father is God. In John 6:31, Jesus called him “God the Father.” In John 4:21-23, Jesus identified “the Father” as the God the Jews and Samaritans both worshipped. Jesus also prays to his “Father” in numerous places1–2,…
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The Sermon on the Mount taught complete dependence on the Father, which Jesus’ life on earth also exemplified.
There are those who say that a good Christian should always rejoice because of anything that happens, and must never grieve. These people are wrong. Our instructions are to grieve physical death, and to grieve the sinful condition of our world that leads to it, as God himself does, but to do so in a way that expresses our hope in the resurrection. Do not deny grief, but show hope in grief. Groaning is not a sin.
Let your work appear to your servants, your glory to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us.
Establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands
Jesus is fully human. When he was born as a man, that man was in every way like us, except that he was without sin… The fact of Jesus’ full humanity is important because without it we have NOTHING–no life, no forgiveness, no peace with God, no promise of God’s kindness or guidance, no power, no resurrection, no hope.
Jesus called Himself the whole vine—which includes each of the branches—not just the root or the trunk of the vine. Thus, we are one with Him as the branch is one with the vine. We are each a part of Him, just as he is the life of each of us…. if we live in Christ and His words live in us, anything we ask will be done for us, because the Father is glorified when we bear fruit.