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Many years ago, I taught in Rick Renner’s Bible school and ministered at a convention he held in Riga, Latvia. I saw the beginnings of a church which grew quickly. Seeing the people in their newly established church was one of the most life-changing experiences I have ever encountered.
Read MoreDid dinosaurs really exist? When did they live? Did they roam through the garden of Eden? Did Adam have to name them? Are they extinct today because Noah could not fit them on the ark? If the earth is only six thousand years old, how can science tell us these creatures are millions of years old? Can science be trusted?
Read MoreThe dividing line for heaven and hell is not your works; the dividing line for heaven and hell is receiving Jesus Christ and the righteousness of God.
Read MoreWe want our tithes and offerings to have eternal value, so how do we bring the life of the Holy Spirit into our giving? Throughout the Word of God, giving is compared to sowing seed. For example, in 2 Corinthians 9:6 it says, “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”
Read MoreSolomon was in a state of carnality when he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. It wasn’t until this last chapter that he recovered his spiritual common sense. After years of looking for happiness outside of his relationship with God, he made the deduction that it is best to serve the Lord from your youth and not reach the end of life filled with feelings of bitterness.
Read MoreAngels cannot be numbered. And these mentioned in our text are the elect angels who form two thirds of the angels created. The other third of the angels fell with Lucifer at his rebellion (Revelation 12:4) and are bound in chains today under the earth (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 6).
Read MoreWe have seen how receiving the grace of God transforms a person’s life in an amazing way, bringing them from lonely exile into the palace of the King. This initial type of grace, the grace that brings salvation, is known as “convicting grace.” This is where it all begins: each of us starts our new life in Christ by receiving convicting grace.
Read MoreOften an individual who has had a vision will scrutinize the vision over and over again, instead of scrutinizing the Word. And after dissecting the vision many times, the vision ends up being bigger than it was in the beginning.
Read More“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:19-20)
Read MoreYour memory is part of your soul. When filled with God’s promises it can help produce great faith to trust God.
Read MoreAfter examining the sacrifice for three days, the person brought the sacrifice to the priest to be examined. The person examined the sacrifice and the priest examined the sacrifice. The priest did not examine the person.
Read MoreSome pastors get the idea they have the power in the church. In reality, the people are the true power of the church. God can very easily replace pastors, but it is more difficult to replace whole congregations! Many congregations have continued to exist for long periods of time without a pastor, but no church can exist without a congregation.
Read MoreSome translations of 2 Corinthians 12:7 say the thorn was given to Paul to prevent him from being puffed up with pride. But would Satan actually send something to us to keep us from sinning?
Read MoreBy grace through faith is how people are saved today. But how were they saved in the Old Testament? This is one of my favorite questions to ask a new group of Bible School students. The answer is, in most cases, one of two. Those in the Old Testament were saved by keeping the law or by animal sacrifices. Nether Jews nor Gentiles were ever saved by the law or sacrifices, though God gave both.
Read More“For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.” (Romans 12:4-5)
All believers have personal and doctrinal differences. Yet, God sees us united in the one body of His Son. God desires us to love each other as we love ourselves.
Read MoreI consider this to be the greatest Christmas passage in scripture. Here Jesus is speaking, and I want you to notice what He said. It says in verse five, "Therefore, when he came into the world," this is when He came into the manger, this is when He became a human being. He's been to the earth many times as the angel of the Lord, as the rock, as the cloud that overshadowed the children of Israel. He was the burning bush that spoke to Moses. He came in so many ways, but in those cases, He always came and then He left. But when He came into a human body, He remained, and still remains in a human body today. It's a resurrected body, but once He took on a human body it would be forever.
Read MoreIf the firstfruits or tithe belong to the Lord, why doesn’t He just keep it in the first place? Why does He bless us and ask us to give a tenth back to Him? Because the Lord says to honor Him with the firstfruits of all our increase (Proverbs 3:9), and there is no show of honor if we don’t give to Him. If the Lord just kept ten percent of our income, there would be no honor for Him to receive. He loves to see us succeed and prosper, but He loves it even more when, of our own free will, we give back to Him.
Read MoreThe two words that say it all are grace and faith. If you will notice in this well-known verse of scripture, grace comes before faith. Grace is God’s hand reaching out to you filled with “…all the things that pertain to life and godliness…” (2 Peter 1:3). Faith is our empty hand reaching out to receive what God is giving us in grace.
Read MoreGod’s Plan for Us “In Christ”
The blessings we possess at the point of salvation were provided for us before the foundation of the world. All of our blessings were planned before we were here and given to Christ. He held them for us until the day we accepted Him and were “in Christ.” He did not need redemption, eternal life, an inheritance, or glorification, we did. He was simply chosen by God as our representative.
We possess nothing on our own but share all our blessings with Christ. Only because we are “in Him” do we have any blessing from God. This is the theme of the first chapter of Ephesians. Verses 1-14 form the longest single sentence in the New Testament. Each verse tells us what God did for us before the foundation of the world. God gave them to His Son to hold until the day we became one with Him.
Ephesians 1:3 says, “…who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world…” Verse 6 “He made us accepted in the Beloved.” Verse 7, “…In Him we have redemption.” Verse 11, “…In Him also we have obtained an inheritance.”
God Planned All of This for Us Before We Were Created
In the Garden of Eden, God created and made everything in six days and then made man at the end of the sixth day. Everything was made and prepared for man before he was ever placed in the Garden. Man could not add one thing to God’s completed plan. This is grace.
You are probably wondering why God did not make man first or at least before the last day. It was so man could not help. Grace is God creating a perfect plan and faith is man receiving that perfect plan. God anticipated every need man could have before putting him on earth. Long before man ever faced a problem, God made every answer.
God’s Redemption Plan Was Complete Before the World’s Foundation
It is the same with redemption. Millions of years before Lucifer or Adam fell, God planned every answer for every problem. God was not taken by surprise when His highest-ranking angel fell and became Satan. He was not surprised when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit. God cannot be surprised. He knows everything. He is omniscient. Because He is omniscient, He created a plan for every sin and failing of angels or man.
Once Jesus went to the cross and accomplished God’s plan for man’s redemption, He will never have to go back to the cross to redeem us from a sin God did not know about, forget or anticipate. “Christ dies no more” (Romans 6:9). God’s plan was and is complete. What has happened to us since we believed on Christ, what happens to us daily and what will happen to us into our future and eternity is already complete.
In fact, God sees His plan as complete in our life no matter how far from now it is. God is assured today we will be with Him and Jesus in heaven ten million years from now. In fact, He saw us “in Christ”, equipped for every problem and obstacle we would ever face before He created anything, including angels, heaven, earth, Adam or us. Every plan God had for angels, Satan, Adam, or us was based on His foreknowledge. Because He knew what would happen, He made His plans. Nothing can happen to us God has not already foreseen and planned for. Before temptations came, God made a way of escape. Our answers were here before our problems existed. And, our problems are temporary. Our answers are eternal.
I Am Already Glorified
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He predestined, them He also called; whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” (Romans 8:29, 30)
It is called “predestination” because all of God’s answers for my life are based on His foreknowledge. His plan for my destiny was created before the foundation of the world. God not only knew I would receive His Son, Jesus, He foresaw it happen and planned for success in my life every day. This is also why he chose or “elected” me (1 Peter 1:2). He chose me because He knew I would choose Him.
According to our verse here in Romans 8, He also saw me justified and glorified. I am presently justified, but glorification is yet to come. Yet, glorification, like all the other blessings listed, is in the past tense. God already sees me glorified and has since His plan was created. My resurrection body and home in heaven for eternity is more than a guarantee, it is an accomplished fact. So much so, that God already sees me in heaven now. Because I am in Christ, I can be just as sure I will be in Heaven as I am sure Jesus is already there.
Because of God’s foreknowledge and eternally settled plan, it was possible for God to tell Old Testament saints their sins were remitted before Jesus had come to die and bring them salvation.
“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:7)
Everything in all these verses comes to us from God’s grace including glorification, our resurrection body. We cannot even imagine God’s grace. We can only accept it.
God’s Plan for Eternity Brings Us Comfort Today
Romans 8:30 does not say, “He will glorify those He has justified.” But it says, “Whom He has justified (past tense), them He also glorified (past tense).”
We do not have to live our life wondering if God will keep His word. He has not only accomplished what He has given to us but also what will be given.
Again, because we are in Christ and Christ is in heaven, we can be just as sure we will be in Heaven as we are sure Jesus is already there.
How does this bring comfort to us today? If God sees me already in heaven and in a resurrection body, then I must be going to make it through my present problem. In fact, I will not only make it through this problem, but everyone after this. If God sees me past the finish line, that’s how I need to see myself.
What Does A Redeemed Body Look Like?
John says, “…it has not yet been revealed what we shall be” (1 John 3:2). You cannot look at your present body and even imagine what your resurrection body will be like. Many who saw Jesus after His resurrection did not recognize Him immediately. By looking at scripture we can see glimpses of our resurrection body. “So is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body (us) and there is a spiritual body (Jesus). (1 Corinthians 15:42-44)
Our resurrection body is a reaping of a natural body sown into the dust of the ground. In every case we see our body is sown first then raised in harvest time. All believers will die, except for those living at the time of the resurrection. But we will all be harvested at the same time, at the rapture of the Church. At that time our natural body will become a spiritual body, incorruptible, glorious and powerful. It will permanently replace our physical body. Though it is presently made of unredeemed and cursed dust, it is still the temple of the Holy Spirit.
A Unique Position
In Resurrection, we will be given a unique position higher than Old Testament saints. No man or angel has ever had a position like we will have in eternity. The Church Age is unique to all ages before it. We live in a time the prophets could only see glimpses of and angels desire to see and understand what we know and often take for granted.
You have made him a little lower than the angels, You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish that pass through the paths of the seas (Psalm 8:5-8). According to Psalm 8, Adam was a creation unlike anything before him with a unique position under God, over angels and over creation.
Our glorified state will be greater than that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It will also be greater than any Old Testament saint. Even the greatest of the prophets were servants in God’s house. But Jesus and those who are born again are sons in God’s house (Hebrews 3:5,6).
Adam and Eve were never family, but servants in the house of God. They were not, and are not, seated with God on His throne. Adam and Eve were never “in Christ”.
All Old Testament saints were forgiven of their sins and accounted righteous, but never “made the righteousness of God in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
The Life Is In You
The first act of the Holy Spirit in the Life of believers is to give them eternal life when they receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This transformation takes place in our spirit, not in our physical body or our soul (mind, will, and emotions). When we are born again, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside our human spirit. At that moment, we are given all of the Person of the Holy Spirit, not half of Him then and the other half at another time.
In John 14:17, Jesus tells His disciples what the ministry of the Holy Spirit would be to the Church after His resurrection. “ The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”
The Holy Spirit who lives in us is the same Holy Spirit who lived in Jesus when He walked this earth. Because the Holy Spirit who lived in Jesus raised Him from the dead, our New Birth - the Holy Spirit living inside us - also becomes our guarantee of resurrection. The qualification for resurrection is simply the New Birth.
“ But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11)
A believer in the Lord Jesus becomes the New Testament temple for the presence of God. The glory of God, which is the presence of the Holy Spirit, moved out of the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ death, and after Jesus’ resurrection, came to dwell in the hearts of believers. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?”
The Power is Upon You
The purpose of the infilling of the Holy Spirit is to endue us with God’s power. God is not only concerned about our inward man, the human spirit, but also our outward man, our daily life. Our natural man faces the world each day and needs the power of God to overcome it. Since Satan is the god of this world and demonic forces control much of our society, we need His power for our own life, as well as to bless those around us.
When we are clothed with God’s supernatural power, we have confidence in facing any circumstance or demonic attack that comes against us. The infilling of the Holy Spirit sets us free from many of the restraints and insecurities which have held us back, even as believers.
When Lazarus was raised from the dead, he still had to be loosed from the grave clothes which hindered him. Jesus said, “Loose him, and let him go” (John 11:44). The Holy Spirit IN us gives us life, but the Holy Spirit ON us gives us power to live the Christian life. It clothes the natural life of the believer with daily miracle power from God. This miracle power is for our life as a witness before the world. It opens us up to the supernatural gifts and demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit, which are so necessary to win the lost. Satan has empowered his followers in the earth, and God wants to empower us to courageously meet and defeat them.
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
On the Day of Pentecost, the 120 were praying in one place in total harmony. It was then that the infilling of the Holy Spirit became a reality, and God’s supernatural ability became available to everyone in the Church. Acts 2:3-4 says, “Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” This promise of power was not only for those in the Upper Room but for all who would believe on the Lord from that time on, Jew or Gentile (Acts 2:39).
What a Difference!
What a difference this power made in the lives of the disciples! Before the Day of Pentecost, Peter was afraid to admit he even knew Jesus to a young girl who was warming her hands at a fire. Yet, after being clothed with power by the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, Peter boldly stood up and preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to 3000 religious Jews.
Peter’s sudden courage and dedication in presenting the Gospel did not stop there, either. A few days later, he grabbed the hand of a paralyzed man at the Gate Beautiful, and the power of God raised the man up and healed him. The disciple who once cowered before a little girl’s questions about his relationship with Jesus began to walk in such power from the Holy Spirit that his shadow caused people to be healed as he walked the streets of Jerusalem (Acts 5:15).
Is Satan any less powerful today than he was in Peter’s time? Obviously, he is not. If for no other reason than that, the same power believers needed in the Early Church is needed for believers today. Thank God, the Bible tells us that God is no respecter of persons (Acts10:34). The same power Peter walked in is available to all believers today.
Even Jesus, who had the Holy Spirit within, would not begin to minister until the Holy Spirit came on Him when He was baptized by John at the Jordan River. We need our Jordan River experience today! There is a world of hurting people who are in desperate need of ministry. They do not need a list of impossible rules and empty philosophies from powerless Christians, but powerful demonstrations of the only true and living God. They want to see God in action in their lives and in believers’ lives.
For this reason, the same God Who anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power (Acts 10:38), wants to do the same for believers today!
