What is Sin According to the Bible?

Good morning!  Hope you had a blessed day in Him yesterday.  Let’s get straight to the two  very hard scriptures in 1 John to illustrate to us what “sin” is.  Here are resources to study if you like:  go to any good study tool that will dig into the original manuscript translations.  I like bluetterbible.com. Type in sin and search.  Go straight to first John and look at the different words used in every scripture that in our Eng. translations just render “sin”.  We will look at two but there are 10 or more.  Use that tool in conjunction with a good complete, expository dictionary like Vines, or any other good one.  Click on your verse, go to the right and click C for concordance, use that to get a foundation and then look up sin in Vine’s.  For instance,  love is really 4 different words in Hebrew and Greek but the English translation uses 1.  This allows for confusion because according to God, love comes in 4 different kinds and it alters meaning if we use them right.

For example:  agape is one love that is of God and only possessed by the indwelt,  saved, and is used when we are told to love our enemy, our brother , etc.  phileo is another kind that is a brotherly human love dependent upon my feelings and  likes and how someone treats me.  It is present in all people.  Everyone phileos those whom they like and those who please them.  But only the born again have the ability to agape (love) my enemy.  Agape is not a feeling but an action based on the love of God flowing through me, even to my enemy.  This is how a believer CAN love his neighbor as himself.  It is agape from the throne of Grace now in my heart.  Agape is described in 1 Corinthians 13.  It is patient, kind, it is not proud or rude, it doesn’t envy or boast.  It always believes the best, not the worst.  It always protects, helps, trusts.  And so on.  Agape never fails.  It is perfected love that John and every other writer in the Bible speaks of.

When Jesus sums up the mature, fully given over and obedient believer, He says this:  They agape the Lord with all their heart soul mind and strength AND agape their neighbors as themselves.  Period.  This is ALL the law and the prophets and it is what happens in our hearts when we walk in His fullness through surrender to Him (Obedience, which is faith and righteousness).   It is perfected love, perfected faith.
1 John 3:9 says this:  “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin (hamartia); for His seed remains in him;  and he cannot sin (hamartano) because he is born of God.”   actual rendering:      “Whosoever is born of God does not (act from a heart driven by the root of sin);  for His seed remains in him:  and he cannot (wander from the righteous path in an ongoing, continual way that is a way of life for him), because he is born of God.”
can we see?  John is saying that a truly saved person cannot decidedly sin continually as a way of his character and lifestyle if he really has been born again (saved, or having the seed of Christ in his heart).    If we move down to 5:18 we see the qualifying of this verse.  How is this so in verse 3:9?  because if he has been born of God, he keeps himself.
These are the two main verses but if you really want to dig deep, study each one in this single book.  You will get more and more light as you study.  But use a complete tool.  That is critical.  If you don’t it is like trying to make spaghetti sauce without garlic!!!  Our English translations provide a good overview but that is all.  Dig and you’ll find.  This is the pearl of great price by the way, the treasure hidden in a field.  Sell all you have to buy it.  The knowledge of God leads to righteousness.  The pearl is the Mind of Christ found once we enter the Kingdom of God.  Search that too and see if it is so.
Here are a couple more, and this is really looked into a lot in Crucified for anyone who is interested.  I am skimming what I examine there.  1 John 3:6 says that anyone who abides in Him, sins (hamartano) not.  This refers to the mature, sanctified.  It ties into Psalm 91 where we see that the one who dwells in the secret place of the Most High ABIDES under the shadow of the Almighty.  Abiding as mentioned in John 15 refers to the same thing.  So John is telling us that the mature believer does not continually wander from the righteous path, only rendered sin in the English.  Are you feeling freer yet???
Here is another, maybe even more critical verse that I have yet to hear a single teacher, preacher get right.  1 John 1:8 says, “If we say that we have no sin (hamartia), we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
correct rendering:  “If we say we have no ( inborn source in the heart to rebel against God, as our natural inclination without Christ, that needs a Savior), then we lie and do not practice the truth.”
Aha!  In other words, If a man says he is not in need of a Savior because he is pretty good afterall, that he was not born wicked with a natural tendency to rebel against God, but was born good, that he is not wicked, maybe a blank slate as pop psychology would have it…HE LIES!  How is he lying?  Romans 1 and 2 tell us clearly!  EVERY human created knows there is a God (and if he searches he will find Christ, who is very God of very God)  and also has the law of God on his heart because God put it upon every single solitary heart created, so man is without excuse, by seeing the things that are made, knowing that a holy God made them.  AND…he knows that he breaks that law.  Period.  If he says he doesn’t and is basically pretty good..he is a liar.
Now all teachers teach this verse as follows and it is so wrong!!!  Most if not all teach it as if it said, no one can say they are done with sin or that it is not in their lives because they are liars if they do!
NO!  That is not what John said.  He said the former.  If a man says he has no sin in his heart that needs a Savior, he is a liar.  A mature sold-out believer walking in agape can say, I am done with sin…dead to it.  He is not a liar.
Paul exhorts us that we had better kill sin in our hearts.  “How can you who are dead to sin (hamartia) live any longer in it?”  How can you, who have died to operating from a corrupt character in a continual and inherently rooted way, continue in it?
The answer is that it is impossible and the subsequent verses in 1 John drive that home. God says if that is present in a man, then he has not been saved.  
Now hamartano is different.  It is an ignorant type of provoked sin that does not happen as a pattern but is isolated.  There is no quilt here, thereby no “sin” as we understand it.  
Jesus said, “If you had been blind, there would be no sin, but since you say ‘I see’, your sin remains”.  
A person who “sins” hamartano, occasionally in a way that is foreign, isolated, and unknowing, is without guilt, blameless.  He has done it as an isolated, provoked, ignorant, knee jerk reaction to a temptation.  It has nothing to do with his faith, that is in tact.  “Anything that is not if faith is sin.”
Wow.  I want to go into OT teaching of sin shown to us as leprosy.  It solidifies just what we learned but will make it even clearer.  
Now an immature believer will continually hamartano when provoked.  “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on ME”.  They have not the agape to stop it yet.  Their love has not been perfected in Christ Jesus (1 John 9, 10, 11 & 4:12).  That is why they may re-visit weak areas again and again with no victory or overcoming.  AND it is all because of resistance to obey God and for no other reason.  There are no excuses but willful refusal to obey.  They remain this way if they choose and arrive in Heaven having never produced fruit as we see in 1 Corinthians.
I wanted to get to James and Abraham and righteousness but that will wait til next time.  But know this and search it til then:  righteousness (actual and not the imputed or positional)  isalways sought, labored over, earned!!! and only the indwelt can find it or DO it.
Agape in Christ and till next time, have a great day!C

Generational Curse

Today at 5:06 AM  Beware of the false teaching in the church today concerning generational curses.  Satan has implemented this false doctrine to detract the individual from the truth that personal sin is our problem and not a generational curse.  Satan’s newest campaign against the word of God is to remove the notion of sin entirely.  He is even promoting a sinless gospel.  “Just come to Christ because He does good things and is wise”.  But we are to come to Christ in repentance of sin, in order to receive the gift of salvation.  Ezekiel 18:1-20 is critical.  God says that there is a lying teaching that says a father eats sour grapes and his son’s teeth are set on edge.  He says it is a lie.  He goes into great detail to say, “the soul that sins, it shall die.”  In other words, each man is responsible for HIS sin, not his father’s.  God even reiterates it by explaining that a son who sees his father committing sin, sees that it is bad, determines to not do what his father did, he shall live, meaning not be guilty and therefore not suffer the consequences of his father’s sin. We can suffer for someone else’s sin (if my brother is in prison for his sin, I suffer because I love him, etc.) in a way, but we do not suffer the consequences of something we did not do.  Proponents of this teaching will cite the Lord warning that He will visit punishment to the fourth generation.  But the difference is that this was a judgment and not a curse.  We cannot pray God’s determined judgment away.    This generational curse teaching says that there can be a sin of generations gone by that can wreak havoc in a life connected to that family.  They say in order to remove the trouble, you have to break the curse.  This is found nowhere in the Bible and is nothing more than WITCHCRAFT and SUPERSTITION.  We can teach our children to do as we do and they learn by example, but this is not a curse. We can suffer as children from a sinful home but Jesus comes in and changes everything if we let Him.  Salvation brings newness, not the imagined breaking of some curse.  God goes to great lengths to explain that each man is responsible for his own sin.  A man reaps what HE sows, not what his father sowed.

To Know and Follow Hard After God

Good morning!  I just wanted to share something lovely I found last night while reading King Saul’s story.  One of my favorite verses is in the Psalms.  David expresses that he is following hard after God.  There is a beautiful song “To know and follow hard after You”….one of my favorites.  Well, this thought is self explanatory and very descriptive.  It pictures a heart sold-out completely to God, in every thought and action and inclination of heart. I love how the Holy Spirit uses concepts like this one.  It is even more fascinating when He uses them consistently .  It is very fun, and revealing of His heart, to find a concept repeated elsewhere in the word.  It intensifies the meaning and our understanding of the heart of what is being said.  There is always some similitude, or picture, idiom, that is being expressed when He does this. Look at this one: I only know of one other place in the word where this thought, this sentence, this same arrangement of words is used.   Interestingly, it is in a battle scene in 1 Samuel 14:22.  The picture is of men of Israel (Hebrews who were at one time on the side of the Philistines) allying themselves with King Saul because they loved Jonathan, his son…a mighty warrior, and man of God.  It says that they joined Jonathan and “followed hard” after the Philistines. Now picture what this means:  It means they were 1-relentless, 2-the Philistines couldn’t shake them. 3- they were on the Philistines heals, 4- they were grabbing hold of them by violence, 5- not taking defeat as an option, 6- If the Philistines were to look behind them what would they have seen? Capture, overcoming, seizing. 7- The end is a pursuer, who will  not settle for anything but seizure of that which is pursued. We see this in a parable too.  There is a king.  A woman has a request.  She is so doggedly determined that she won’t leave the king alone but pesters him till he is so weary of her she gets what she went in for.  This concept has nothing to do with the getting of anything but Christ Himself.  I love how God uses exaggerated parables to really communicate a point.  Of course He wants us to “pester” Him.  It is not possible to “pester” God.  He desires it.  It is seen also when the woman with an issue of bleeding for 12 years grabs hold of His garment and there is an appearance of “pestering” Christ.  He is showing many things here with this woman.  One is that she had the right idea out of everyone there.  It was a set up.  He wanted it to happen exactly as it did to show the others that this is how He is “got” so to speak.  Just grab hold  and don’t let go!!!  What did He say when she did?  Tim, Garrett and I were discussing this a few days ago.  I felt power go from Me.  Did we get that?  I felt power go from Me.  Then all He could say was that He marveled at her faith.  She didn’t even want to be seen or recognized.  She just wanted His life.  What a perfect picture of the violent grabbing hold of God. This is how to get hold of Christ, after He has got hold of you.  Seize Him.  Follow hard after Him and do not give up.  “With all thy getting” get Him…(Wisdom…which is Christ).  Nothing can beat the King James in so many instances.   The following hard is another way to say, get with all thy getting.  This is the overcoming life in Christ.  Get Him with all thy getting. We see this concept first when the Passover was instituted.  The Israelites were to kill the Lamb and eat it.  But listen to this:  They were to eat all of it…leaving nothing till morning!  Jesus said if you do not eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have no part in Me!  This is not just referring to communion.  This is a visceral picture of consuming Christ for life, the overcoming life in Him. It is following hard after Jesus.  It is grabbing hold of His heals and refusing to let go. Again…eat His flesh and drink His blood! Jesus is to be consumed. Remember that the Kingdom of God permits violence…and violent men take it by force. The Christian walk is nowhere seen as a passive one.  It is aggressively holy.  It is aggressively hard.  It is aggressively passionate.  Aggressively determined.   Aggressively believing God.  Aggressively seeking out His Mind, His heart, His ways. It is therefore, aggressively satisfying!!!  And nothing else but this is. Here is where the believer is transformed into the overcomer…in the relentless getting and consuming of Christ! God by You!Pass it on!Love,C  

Should I Forgive?

Forgiveness?

It seems that there are conflicting sentiments in the body of believers about the all-important and life-giving truth of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is the very heart of God.  If that is true then it ought to be the very heart of the believer too.  We see this all through out the word.Forgiveness is freeing and nurturing and spiritual food for the forgiver even more than for the one who receives so much by being forgiven.  And we all need forgiveness, right?
It is the unique quality of followers of Christ.  The parable of the wicked servant is a picture of who we do not want to be.  The servant was forgiven tremendous debt by his master.  He was over joyed but when it came time for him to pass on that forgiveness to his debtors, he would not.  This is what made him the most despicable of servants.  He was a taker and not a giver…a hypocrite.
But is there occasion where a believer is not to forgive?  Is there something that must happen first in order for the one who needs forgiveness to be forgiven?  Yes!
”  Take heed to yourselves.  If your brother trespasses against you, rebuke him.  And if he repents, forgive him” (Luke 17:3)  “And if he trespasses against you 7 times a day, and 7 times a day turns again to you and says I repent, you shall forgive him” (Luke 17:4).
So there is a qualification for forgiving others.  They must repent. Now is there anything wrong with forgiving even if they do not repent?  Of course not!  Forgiveness brings joy and peace and is the heart of God.  But is there occasion to retain one’s sin against him? Yes.  But the aim is so the person WILL repent.  It is not to exact vengeance.  God says vengeance is His and not ours. He repays.
So Jesus sent His disciples out and breathed on them to receive the Holy Spirit.  Then look ”  Whose soever sins you remit, they are remitted unto them;  and whose soever sins you retain they are retained” (John 20:23).
Now this is an example of the obligation of believers to act as ambassadors of the Kingdom of God.  The reason for retaining ones sins against them (and we have the authority to do it if we are disciples of Christ…not just believers but disciples (mature and fruit bearing believers).  Why?  It is in order to help other believers caught up in sinful ways to grow and change; to repent and become more like Christ.  It is exactly what a good parent would do for the child he loves who has been disobedient and refuses to admit it and correct it.  The parent who provides no consequences for sin and bad behavior will encourage the child in the bad behavior.  This is exactly what we see here.  What happens to the child whose parent never corrected rightly?  The world will correct him and then it is a very painful thing to watch.  The world is not so loving as the parent.  Best for correction to be done in-house.
Now elsewhere in the Bible it simply says that if we do not forgive then we will not be forgiven.  But we have to put that in context with the whole word on the subject.  When we do we see that this obviously is referring to one with a spirit of unforgiveness and that even when the offender is sorry and repents, they still won’t forgive.  And forgiving someone does not necessarily mean buddy buddy friendship now.  It just means that we have remitted the sin against them in our hearts and really do hope and long for their mending.
Now the reason this authority is given to the mature, or spiritual believer only (you can do your research on that and will see this conclusion in the word) is because the immature believer will assert his own interests and not God’s.  He will probably act vengefully and this has NOT been given to man.  Only God can do that in all holiness.
But to retain an offender’s sin against them (if we are spiritual in Christ…the immature do not have that ability, God won’t hear it) is a very beneficial thing for the offender.  We can actually see the hand of God pressing down upon the offender with Fatherly discipline and it is a result of the prayers and petitions of the disciples who would die for the sheep if it were necessary…but at the moment must retain their sin against them for their own good.
May we all get to the point where forgiveness is something so welled up inside of us that it is a burden when we know that the forgiveness we long to give is not right at the moment .  May we be so forgiving that the abundance of it in our hearts has to be restrained in some rare and unusual circumstances…all for the lifting up and purifying of the church, the body of Christ.
Food for thoughtLove in Him,C 

The Holy Spirit Only Speaks of Jesus

Hey again everyone.  I have a brief thought I’d like to share about apparent discrepancies found especially in the Gospels.  There are so many but I thought I’d expound upon one in particular and in doing that show a pattern for thought concerning all the others.  They are all so explainable. If we have read much in the Word we know that there are differences in the account of the thieves on the cross in the Gospels.  Luke is the only Gospel account that shows us the one thief who came to Christ while he was on a cross beside Him.  The other accounts leave that out.  They just say, they reviled him.  End of story. But this is no contradiction.  You may have heard what seemed to be far-flung attempts at reconciling these things and your spirit said, uh uh.  But the answer is so simple.  Matthew and Mark give accounts of what they knew.  This means that at first, both thieves expressed disdain for Christ and doubted Him, reviling Him.  This is what they recorded and they are correct in the recording of it.  So we know at the beginning both reviled Him. We can be correct in an account of something yet incomplete.  This is the case here. Luke comes along and has a peculiar role.  Read the entry to Luke and you will see how very delicate he is in laying out the account in perfect order and completeness.  Luke is the only gentile writer among the 4 Gospel accounts.  He and Ruth are the only gentile writers of the entire Bible and this is by design.  The 4 Gospels are represented through out the entire Bible in hidden ways.  If we look at the tribes of Israel in the dessert setting up camp in the exact order they were instructed to do, at an aerial view we would see the shape of the cross.  At the head of one camp there is a symbol that delineates that camp and it is a Lion (Matthew who reveals Christ as the Lion of the tribe of Judah). At another point,  the symbol given is an ox (Mark, who reveals Christ as the Suffering Servant).  The third is an eagle (John strictly reveals the majesty of Christ, Christ as Yahweh, Jehovah God).  And the forth is a man (Luke reveals Jesus as fully God yet fully man, the humanity of Christ, that He came to save all men and not just Israel…this may be why He had a gentile write it!!!).   Now this same pattern is seen to some extent in Daniel’s vision, Ezekiel’s vision and John’s.  Ezekiel very beautifully says that the creatures with the 4 faces are not creatures at all (some have missed this and think these are cherubim, but they are not).  He clearly says that the weird “creatures” he sees are simply the “APPEARANCE of the LIKENESS of the GLORY of God…in case anyone is tempted to misunderstand what is seen.  God is Spirit so Ezekiel is miraculously given a visual representation of the likeness of the glory of God!  And it is a foreshadowing of the 4 Gospels or the 4 roles of Christ.  The image moves in all directions in an instant (God’s omnipresence).  It has eyes all around (His all knowing) etc. All this is to show how perfect the Gospels are even in their seeming imperfections!   Here is an example of how the Holy Spirit has written the Word; for we are told that men under His guidance have written it.  Just think of how we are told in the gospels that Jesus baptized.  This is to convey a thought.  But then shortly after that the statement is clarified.  It says, well actually it was His disciples who did the baptizing but still it was the Lord’s doing.  We can choke on the letter of the Word if we hang on the dissection of it rather than breathing in the truth of it and tasting the Word as truth and for truth. Another example is this:  We are told that the Lord said He was so fed up with Israel that He was going to wipe her out for good.  Then in the next few sentences it is clarified for us and it says, but He won’t totally destroy her, for there is a remnant. God is passionate and speaks just as we do, or we speak just as He does, for we were made in His image.   Also, the Bible interprets itself.  So where we see an apparent contradiction, if we know well the rest of the scriptures, all is interpreted flawlessly for us.  The Word is perfect. I’ll leave you with a really cool thought about the “creatures” in Ezek. with the 4 faces that represent the 4 Gospels.  Notice that they move up and down like an elevator moves.  Ezekiel is known for his attempts to describe things in his vision that will be in the last days that in his time were not invented (possible nuclear weapons, etc.).  Why then wouldn’t he be describing an elevator of sorts?  In Jacobs day, he saw a ladder extending into the Heavens.  Jesus tells us that Jacobs vision was of Himself.  He said, I was the ladder in Jacobs dream.  So warp forwards thousands of years and now the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God has all the attributes of a modern ladder…an elevator!!!!  Just a crazy thought.  God is so much fun and so hilarious! God bless, Godspeed and God’s love!


Bible Contradictions???

Hey again everyone.  I have a brief thought I’d like to share about apparent discrepancies found especially in the Gospels.  There are so many but I thought I’d expound upon one in particular and in doing that show a pattern for thought concerning all the others.  They are all so explainable. If we have read much in the Word we know that there are differences in the account of the thieves on the cross in the Gospels.  Luke is the only Gospel account that shows us the one thief who came to Christ while he was on a cross beside Him.  The other accounts leave that out.  They just say, they reviled him.  End of story. But this is no contradiction.  You may have heard what seemed to be far-flung attempts at reconciling these things and your spirit said, uh uh.  But the answer is so simple.  Matthew and Mark give accounts of what they knew.  This means that at first, both thieves expressed disdain for Christ and doubted Him, reviling Him.  This is what they recorded and they are correct in the recording of it.  So we know at the beginning both reviled Him. We can be correct in an account of something yet incomplete.  This is the case here. Luke comes along and has a peculiar role.  Read the entry to Luke and you will see how very delicate he is in laying out the account in perfect order and completeness.  Luke is the only gentile writer among the 4 Gospel accounts.  He and Ruth are the only gentile writers of the entire Bible and this is by design.  The 4 Gospels are represented through out the entire Bible in hidden ways.  If we look at the tribes of Israel in the dessert setting up camp in the exact order they were instructed to do, at an aerial view we would see the shape of the cross.  At the head of one camp there is a symbol that delineates that camp and it is a Lion (Matthew who reveals Christ as the Lion of the tribe of Judah). At another point,  the symbol given is an ox (Mark, who reveals Christ as the Suffering Servant).  The third is an eagle (John strictly reveals the majesty of Christ, Christ as Yahweh, Jehovah God).  And the forth is a man (Luke reveals Jesus as fully God yet fully man, the humanity of Christ, that He came to save all men and not just Israel…this may be why He had a gentile write it!!!).   Now this same pattern is seen to some extent in Daniel’s vision, Ezekiel’s vision and John’s.  Ezekiel very beautifully says that the creatures with the 4 faces are not creatures at all (some have missed this and think these are cherubim, but they are not).  He clearly says that the weird “creatures” he sees are simply the “APPEARANCE of the LIKENESS of the GLORY of God…in case anyone is tempted to misunderstand what is seen.  God is Spirit so Ezekiel is miraculously given a visual representation of the likeness of the glory of God!  And it is a foreshadowing of the 4 Gospels or the 4 roles of Christ.  The image moves in all directions in an instant (God’s omnipresence).  It has eyes all around (His all knowing) etc. All this is to show how perfect the Gospels are even in their seeming imperfections!   Here is an example of how the Holy Spirit has written the Word; for we are told that men under His guidance have written it.  Just think of how we are told in the gospels that Jesus baptized.  This is to convey a thought.  But then shortly after that the statement is clarified.  It says, well actually it was His disciples who did the baptizing but still it was the Lord’s doing.  We can choke on the letter of the Word if we hang on the dissection of it rather than breathing in the truth of it and tasting the Word as truth and for truth. Another example is this:  We are told that the Lord said He was so fed up with Israel that He was going to wipe her out for good.  Then in the next few sentences it is clarified for us and it says, but He won’t totally destroy her, for there is a remnant. God is passionate and speaks just as we do, or we speak just as He does, for we were made in His image.   Also, the Bible interprets itself.  So where we see an apparent contradiction, if we know well the rest of the scriptures, all is interpreted flawlessly for us.  The Word is perfect. I’ll leave you with a really cool thought about the “creatures” in Ezek. with the 4 faces that represent the 4 Gospels.  Notice that they move up and down like an elevator moves.  Ezekiel is known for his attempts to describe things in his vision that will be in the last days that in his time were not invented (possible nuclear weapons, etc.).  Why then wouldn’t he be describing an elevator of sorts?  In Jacobs day, he saw a ladder extending into the Heavens.  Jesus tells us that Jacobs vision was of Himself.  He said, I was the ladder in Jacobs dream.  So warp forwards thousands of years and now the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God has all the attributes of a modern ladder…an elevator!!!!  Just a crazy thought.  God is so much fun and so hilarious! God bless, Godspeed and God’s love!

The Unforgivable Sin

Hey family and friends in the Lord.  I have a sweet thought to ponder today and to share if I may.  This scripture has been explained in so many ways by the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us, that is, all of our brethren who are still here, and those who have gone ahead of us who have left an impression upon our hearts concerning the Word, the Logos. “He who blasphemes the Son of God it will be forgiven him.  But he who blasphemes the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him.” Now, I am certain that we all know what this means because it is very obvious, plus, the Holy Spirit bears witness with ours, if we are His, as to the meaning of it.  It means that the one and only thing that will not be forgiven is the rejection of the indwelling presence of God, the Holy Spirit.  This is refusing to receive the gift of forgiveness of sin by the slain Lamb of God, Jesus. However, there is more to articulate here if we ponder, and today as I was reading Mark 15 it hit me like a ton of bricks and the sweetness of it is overwhelming.  Have you ever asked what God meant, that Jesus can be blasphemed but not the Holy Spirit? It is a good and high question.  Again, even though our indwelt spirits know this, it may not be easily articulated as high spiritual truth is often too much for mere words.  For instance, we know like we know that this has nothing to do with ugly, angry, faithless outbursts against God, whether we say Jesus or the Holy Spirit.  This has nothing to do with what is meant here. Well here are some clumsy, and according to Garrett, verbose, words to perhaps savor concerning the idea: Of course all blaspheming the Son of God will be forgiven us, of course!!!  Why?  Because He is God in the flesh, the second Person of the Trinity, who in His very roll as the Slain Lamb, the sacrificial Lamb of God, came in order to be blasphemed, spit upon, beaten, bruised, hated, despised of men, regarded as nothing, CRUCIFIED.  It’s why He came!  He is God, condescending Himself to receive rejection by the very object of all His affection (us), so that we might live.  Man has no greater love than this, that He would lay down His life for His friends.  Bless Him!  One coming to Christ today but slowly or hardly blasphemes Him and it is not held against him.  He is beaten by us before we believe yet it is not placed to our account.  He came to be the whipping post for all our sin and selfishness and death.  The blows to His head, the tearing out of His beard in primal hatred that is  seated so deeply in the human heart, He came to receive upon Himself, so He could give His blood to us; forgiveness, life. Now blaspheming the Holy Spirit is not forgivable because the Holy Spirit did not come to be crucified, hated, rejected, despised of men…blasphemed.  Ponder that…selah. He came to indwell the heart who has received Christ, which is forgiveness of sin.  So until sin is forgiven, the Holy Spirit cannot come to a heart.  1 Corinthians tells us plainly, though we know it spiritually, that Christ is the Spirit of God, so they are one in the same, yet in different rolls as redemption is accomplished.  The Holy Spirit is the glorified Christ…He cannot be blasphemed.  But the Holy Spirit is the Person of the Godhead, Christ Himself, the Father, Yahweh, Jehovah God, who has been sent now that the Son has ascended, returned to His throne, so that He can tabernacle in the hearts of those who will receive Christ. Before God crucified Himself to pay for our sin, the human heart was unfit for the Holy Spirit.  He dwelt among His people, even within them in a certain sense that takes into account that the Lamb was slain before time began.  But to tabernacle in the human heart, which was His plan even before creation, He had to clean the heart of man, which God has shown us is desperately wicked and without cure if we do not receive forgiveness of sin by faith in Christ. This is the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost then, to reject His indwelling.  Hebrews explains to us how once a man has been enlightened to the truth but then chooses that he does not want this gift, there is no hope for this man.  Now where there is life there is hope so this is out of our territory to know.  But God sees the heart.  This does not mean a man can be saved and then lose his salvation.  That is impossible.  Hebrews explains that as well when Paul says, “But I speak better of you brethren…” So while we may see someone who rejects Christ and delays rsvp-ing His invitation to “Come to Me”, this is not the blaspheming of the Holy Ghost.  Someone who has blasphemed the Holy Ghost has permanently and eternally rejected salvation by faith through grace. How wonderful is God!  Love y’all and pass it on if you find it worthy! 

The Beauty of Having to Be Redeemed

Do we as believers really understand the beauty of redemption? If we did, would we be more patient and expectant concerning the lost? I think so.

When we look at the fact that ALL mankind needs redeeming, we can be put off. We can feel even disgusted by the fact that God has to redeem so many lost people, sinners…yuck. Ah, but I have seen something else. I think if the church would rightly handle this truth, that all mankind is lost until they are born again, that we would have most softness for the lost world. God does. We should as well.

A newborn baby though innocent of any practical sin is doomed at birth. He was born with a sin nature. He is innocent because he is unable to choose sin yet but filled with the fallen sin nature nonetheless, and therefore destined for Hell.

One of the saddest things I’ve seen in the church, especially the denominational churches where truth has really been lost, is that parents are so eager to save their baby that they baptize them and tell themselves that they are saved or confirm them and force them under duress to claim they are saved.

Have you ever thought of King David and his sin with Bathsheba? He is a great example of what I want to convey. But this is what I want to convey first, then we will look at his sin for a perfect illustration.

What a glorious thing to be born a sinner. Yes, that’s right. We will all see one day. How can I be redeemed if I need no redemption? How can I be died for, and covered in His precious blood, and indwelt with His Holy Spirit, if I were not in need of redemption? How dark in my eyes. How desperately sad. What would I have been then? An angel? Oh please no! Bless God Almighty that I was born lost and needed to be found!!! How else would He have found me if He never had to run after me? How else would I know the ominous beauty of His death, and the all-consuming depth of His love toward me, if my heart were not black to begin with and worse, I had no knowledge of it?

How would I be able to comprehend His jealousy for me if I had not been sought by Him!!!! There would have been none…no comprehension of it! Oh, my sin before I knew Him was great but one day He has promised to put it out of my mind. And in His heart and mind it is already done; so much so, that I believe, that in THAT day, He will have made it so that it never occurred. He can turn the clock back you know!

I am not by any means saying that sin is good. It required the crucifixion of the Chosen One. But I am saying that there is a mystery here. It involves free will. God’s Love is so great that it requires a free willed creation to choose it. That same free willed creation will always and eventually choose revolt. But once that same one chooses repentance and salvation, the picture is clear.

Let a man see his sin so he can delight in salvation. That’s what God did with David. Look: David was raised in a godly home. David had a heart receptive to God. This is why he was chosen to be king. But David never had an opportunity to see his depraved heart, so salvation was only so sweet to him, maybe.

God, in His mercy, allowed David to fall. He fell big. But all you have to do is read the Psalms where he laments in agony over his sin and praises God to the utmost for his salvation. We can see that his heart truly did pant after God. David, like us, had to see how depraved his heart really was, so God allowed it. It is because he saw that he loved God so much. Its the same with us.

Ah, but He grants repentance to whom He will! And what a beautiful thing repentance is! How horrible that the apostate church has robbed poor lost souls of the glorious gift of repentance. The false church lies and says repentance is not necessary unto salvation. How horrible. There is an exquisite euphoria to true repentance. Satan is jealous of it. God has not granted it to him or to those who deny the doctrine of repentance. They have no idea what they are missing.

The thing of course they are missing is salvation but let’s look at what salvation is: the indwelling of the Holy Spirit… they cannot know this. Being saved from the second death, damnation…they are doomed. We cannot know the infusion of God within us, without it.

So when we see friends, family, strangers, lost in their sin, don’t despise them…not yet. God hates the evil doer, so despise is not too strong a word. We are to hate the evil and love the good, just like God does. But hold your judgment. Instead, pray, watch, preach, love, and did I say pray?
Let them see!!! Let them see!!! Had I not seen my lost heart I would have never entered rapturous repentance and then salvation. Don’t be guilty of robbing anyone of that.

God opens a heart to repent unto salvation if that heart is destined for it. That is, if He has seen in His all-knowing way that they will repent…as these are the ones whose eyes are opened. He closes the eyes of the ones who will never repent. He knows who is who. The word says He blinds the ones who are willingly blind and opens the eyes of the ones who are willingly open, and He sees it all in advance but still gives everyone equal opportunity to repent. God longs that none perish but that all would come to the saving knowledge of God in Christ Jesus our savior.

The apostate church today is just prettying up the old, dead man. “Come in and love yourself and be a good citizen and do good works”. “Whatever you do, don’t, don’t, don’t repent of sin unto salvation. If you do, then you will know the secret of God and we can’t have that”. Satan has deceived them.

But if we then have tasted that the Lord is good, lets let others taste as well.
Amen!

Israel and the Church

Acts 7 :38 tells us that the Israelites in the wilderness according to The Lord was the church! How mysterious is He!!! The birth of the church on Pentecost in Acts 2 is not the beginning of the church like we presume. This is an example of choking on the letter and missing the heart or the fragrance of Truth.

The church was in His heart in Genesis 1:1 and before that if we can receive it. She is a mystical body of both Jew and Gentile… The Bride. Now this is not saying that Israel and the church are the same, they are not. For an intermittent period of time for pattern purposes only, they are two flocks. They will be one in the end. But this only occurs after Christ’s second coming where Israel looks upon Him whom they have pierced and receives their Messiah at last.

The bad thing is that the day the church celebrates Pentecost is not even the right day! We know the day on the calendar yet ignore it and use a pagan schedule to calculate a false day.

The reason Pentecost is used as a day on the calendar to commemorate the birth of the church is because the feasts tell the gospel and the plan of God for creation. This is to show us where we are on His prophetic calendar (for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear).
Lets not separate the two flocks any more than The Lord does and we can better understand prophecy for these days we are in. Now Paul says that not all Israel is Israel so the Israelites who did not receive Messiah when they saw Him were not Israel. But they would have believed if they were really God’s people. It’s the same today.

So the next fulfillment to occur will be feast of trumpets. Remember that Israel is separate for a purpose only to project a pattern for His people, whosoever will believe…ultimately, the church.

During the thousand year reign that is soon coming, there will still be a bit of a separation but all under Christ and knowingly. There will be those who believed before He came of both Jew and Gentile (the Bride or church), the redeemed nation of Israel, from every tribe, who see Jesus and believe. It will be the redeemed nation of Israel that will repopulate the entire earth exactly as Noah did and became many nations and people. During the thousand year reign, the Bride, the church, will be in their glorified bodies and serve as Kings and Priests. Not lording it over nations but ruling and reigning with Him in righteousness.

After that, then there is the New Jerusalem, the New Heaven and he New Earth where there will cease to be any difference. All those who believe will be one people of God, forever.

Just as there is a pattern used with Abraham, Sarah Isaac and Ishmael, God tells truth through pattern which is stronger than words!

How cool is this: Abraham is faith. Sarah is grace. Isaac is the son of promise or the new man (redeemed). Ishmael is the “wild ass of a man” who is the unruly old nature or old man. Salvation (Isaac) comes by grace (Sarah) through faith (Abraham).
Ishmael is the son of the bond woman (Hagar). A slave under the law, the old man and he is an unruly, wild ass of a man!!! Our old nature before grace through faith!
The entire word is full of these patterns and Israel and the church are just one of many. Ill show another even better one next time with Adam and Eve that The Lord showed me. It’s amazing!
Love y’all! Pass it on…
Love,
Cheryl

Sent from my iPhone

Does the Holy Spirit fall on believers any longer?

Correction on teaching of the falling of the Holy Spirit upon believers:

I did hear some incorrect theology concerning these that does prevail in the mainstream churches that is just a lack of study really. May I please mention it for your consideration? Pentecost happened once and will not happen again. The teaching that we can pray for the Spirit to fall on us again as He did at Pentecost is a real misunderstanding of what happened that day. Please hear me out. It is important to correct bad theology.
Jesus was crucified on Passover, the 14th of Nisan, as the Passover Lamb. Never will be done again. It is finished. Paid in full. He ascended to sit on the throne and now any afflictions that come to Christ come to our flesh as the body of Christ as we enter the battle of the Lord to reach the lost.
“I now therefore take up in my flesh, that which is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of the body that is the church…” Paul
So Jesus is not recrucified again and again either in the eucharist which is blasphemy, or as each person is saved, etc. He dies once for all the scriptures say. It will never be re done. The lost are saved by believing on the already accomplished work.
Jesus was in the grave for 3 days and nights (wasn’t crucified on Friday but on Thursday, as He said, 3 days AND 3 nights). He arose on the feast of firstfruits fulfilling that feast. He presented Himself as the firstfruits of the GREAT harvest which is to come, the resurrection of the dead at the trumpet blast.
He will never rise again on the the day of first fruits or any other day and present Himself to the Father as the slain Lamb, the firstfruits offering for the sins of the world. It doesn’t need re doing. It was done ONCE for all.
The feast of unleavened bread that went on for 7 days after the Passover Lamb was slain pictures the purifying work of the blood of Christ in our lives and the sanctification of the believers where all the leaven, sin, is taken out of the house, our spiritual house. This looks to the purifying of the heart after salvation.
Jesus could not be touched for 7 days after His resurrection because the first fruits offering cant be touched by any hands but the High Priest.
On the 8th day, Jesus appeared to the disciples and invited Thomas to touch Him. This pictures the 7 days of purifying and then the 8th day it is pure. Jesus needed no purifying but as the sin offering that He became, He is fulfilling that prophecy. In the same way He needed no baptism but fulfilled all righteousness and was a perfect pattern for us.
Again, He will never do this again. It is done. He will never walk around among us unable to be touched until the 7 days are accomplished, then allow someone to touch Him because it is complete. It is finished. He does walk among us but not in this event. No need.
50 days after the last feast is the feast of Pentecost. Jesus ascended and sent the Holy Spirit to indwell all who would believe. At this event, the church, the whole church for all time, received power from on high to walk uprightly and do God’s good pleasure. This will never happen again because it doesn’t need to happen again. The Spirit came and fell on all who were present at this, once in all time gathering, to picture the eternal and permanent giving of the Holy Spirit in an indwelling way to all who come to faith by repentance for the remission of sins, through Christ Jesus.
We see apostles going around after this event asking those who believed on Christ before but who were not present at Peters preaching that day, if they had received the Holy Spirit. They laid hands on them so that they would. This is a peculiar event that also needs no redoing. They were a small and unique group who had been there at the crucifixion, saw Jesus, believed and were baptised before Pentecost.
They received the indwelling power then by proxy, by the laying on of hands. Not needed today.
The scriptures say we receive the Spirit in full at salvation. The Spirit of God is not given by measure John 3:34, that is, not here a little, there a little. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is totally different than the indwelling. This also only happens once and can happen at any time the Spirit chooses. It can happen at salvation or at some time after depending on the unique circumstances of each believer. There are millions of scenarios. Every believer is continually filled with the Spirit by choice through thinking and acting according to His will. But this is already within him and is not through a prayer but through obedience of that particular believer. By obeying what we know we are filled. By disobeying what we know, the Spirit is quenched (1 Thess 5:19). So having no power means I have not accessed the power already there within me as a true believer. Paul speaks here of the unruly and disobedient believer as the one who will quench the Spirit unless he corrects his BEHAVIOR.
I can pray all I want for a believer but if he chooses to disobey God then he will silence the Spirit within Him. The Spirit never leaves but is silenced. I will never leave you nor forsake you.
We do not once see Pentecost happen again in the scriptures afterwords. We see the Spirit coming upon, again in a special way, a believer for a special task, in an empowering way, like Phillip, who ran faster than the horses of the eunich’s chariot. But we NEVER see the Holy Spirit falling upon a pleading group of believers who have not received His power yet. False doctrine, bad theology.
The full power of the Holy Spirit is given at salvation. The baptism of the spirit comes with obedience to His indwelling Spirit. This is an empowering of the Spirit that is already within if they have believed. We are told to baptize a believer now not just in the name of Christ alone but in the name (not nameS, notice, because they are 3 in one) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It’s complete.
The ones who were asked if they had received the Spirit who were already believers, had been baptized before the Spirit was given at Pentecost. There will never be a group like that again. Everyone who believes today and immediately after the day of Pentecost when He was given to the church receives Him at salvation.
By teaching believers that the Holy Spirit will fall upon you by prayer is false. If they are already true believers, they have all of the Holy Spirit in every way.
If they need the POWER of the Holy Spirit in their lives afterwords, then obedience is the issue. Holy Spirit baptism happens to the obedient, automatically, and as and when He chooses.
It is a popular but erroneous thing these days, in a church that lacks some sound teaching in the word and in doctrine, to ask the Holy Spirit to fall on us in the same way He did at Pentecost.

“My people perish for lack of knowledge.”

So many walk around then with no power from on high because they won’t obey God. And they think they can live like the world and just get hyped up in a church gathering with certain songs and magically God will rain power down upon them. It’s just a lie.
It misleads those who need proper teaching by those entrusted to teach. And It does not glorify God, but does glorify man and the flesh.

The fall feasts are yet to be fulfilled on the actual day, but prophecy seems to show that each event will likely happen on that day. The rapture, the tribulation and tabernacles. He fulfilled the spring feasts with His first coming and will fulfill the fall ones with His second coming.

Please consider it. Search the scriptures to see if it is so.
God bless you all in Christ Jesus,
Cheryl Arnold