Thursday, February 25, 2016

Just a Thought "105"

Their are people who are extremely proud of their humility. There are those who put humility on a show for the sake of elevation self. These people want to tell people how humble they are. But the selflessness Paul has in mind does not point to itself. It does not tell others how selfless it is in order to call attention to it’s self.

The selflessness Paul is talking about does not seek a response from others. It does not have to make an appeal to the emotions of others for the purpose of calling attention to it’s self. True selflessness would point to the selflessness of someone else rather than it’s self. The Christ mindedness sitting in Philippians, Christ sacrificed self for the sake of others. Let a misunderstanding arise and no self protection will rear it’s ugly head such as to not take the first step towards reconciliation.

Joy is directly related to our thinking, this is why Paul redirects our thinking in Philippians, who’s thought had become fleshy oriented. Attitude always precedes action, Paul is giving us cause to think on common ground. How can we rejoice without giving some thought as to what we have to rejoice about. We all have worries and care, but worry never robs tomorrow of it’s sorrow, it only saps today of it’s joy.




Paul does not saying IF we do these things and IF we judge another then we are guilty. Paul is saying whenever we judge another we are automatically condemning yourself, because the truth is we do the same things, we may do them in a different way, but rest assured we do them. Anytime we condemn the coming shortnesses in others, we need to understand the reality of the fact that we are all in the same boat, we all come short in the righteousness department due to that indwelling sin nature.

We all come short of God’s measure of rightness. A person who is in the gutter, so to speak, oftentimes realizes the situation they have gotten themselves into, but a person who believes they are in a position to judge someone else; a person who has rationalized away their own short comings is one who is failing to recognize the sins of self.

Romans 2:2 - Paul begins with this statement in order to contrast God’s judgment with people’s judgment. God’s judgment is according to truth. No slanting of the facts to protect the guilty. No self-justification based on the convenience of the moment. No ethics geared to the situation at hand according to Paul, but God’s judgment is according to truth, our own moralizing standards set aside. The human race is guilty.

If we are pleading that some individuals do in fact measure up to God’s righteousness, Paul has just dispensed with that foolish notion. We all appear at different places, at different times within the list called: GUILTY. There is a short-coming of righteousness in the world, because there is a short-coming of righteousness in individuals, and that includes everyone.




Matt. 12:36 - The meaning of ‘idle word’ is careless or useless sayings. Starting in Matt. 12:22, their was a Pharisee who was guilty of everything in the context of that story. Paul is who that Pharisee was and Paul was not only first in line, when it came to dispensing the grace of God, Paul was also foremost in crime when it came to murdering the saints of Israel’s earthly kingdom program.

If Paul was at Pentecost, would Paul himself, if he took part in stoning Stephen for believing the message given at Pentecost, would he have been a blasphemer at Pentecost? In Paul’s pre-grace zealousness, he would have been a foremost rejecter of any notion whatsoever that Jesus was Israel’s messiah or that Jesus had been risen from among the dead.

First in line, first in crime are apt descriptions for the Apostle of Grace. Paul was the chosen spokesman for God to relay the information for this entire dispensation of grace. God is not dealing with Israel nationally today, he is dealing with all alike in the Age of Grace. The apostle Paul dispensed a message that the 12 apostles had not dispensed, and that message was different, and that message was geared to the Gentiles.


Paul is the chief pattern of God’s grace to all, he is the foremost example. We need to understand that even though Paul was saved, Paul still considered himself to be a sinner. Paul understood the word: Sin. And Paul understood that word meant to come short of the righteousness belonging to God himself. Paul is the foremost example of the impossibility, the total impossibility of gaining righteousness before God through the performance of the flesh. Those who are sealed in Christ, our careless or useless sayings and words are a Judgment Seat of Christ issue.

Friday, February 19, 2016

Just a Thought "104"

To many people think salvation is the end result, but salvation is the starting point. Understanding peace with God comes from understanding the accomplishment of Jesus Christ, but letting the peace of God rule in our hearts is not the same thing as understanding the reality of having peace with God. We need to understand, God had much more in mind when he designed the body of Christ than a library full of learning or a theater of theologians.

There is an element of pride today on the part of many who think God must be looking on them with special favor because they happen to belong to a particular denomination. There are people who take great pride today and elevate themselves above others because they rightly divide the Word of Truth, when rightly dividing the Word of Truth is merely a tool to use, so that you come out with a proper understanding of scripture. Who knows how many have died believing their church affiliation was sufficient to get them into heaven, that attitude is coming from what scripture calls the pride of life and nothing more.

This ministry of reconciliation is not to the saved, we know we are reconciled, but now all have access to God, a change in status for the entire world. Does this mean the entire world is save? No. There are those who mistakenly suppose that reconciliation is the same thing as justification. These people have jumped to the conclusion that Jesus Christ taking the sin issue off the table of God’s justice through his becoming sin for the human race is that which makes a person as righteous as God; they have mistaken reconciliation for justification. Being declared righteous is God’s gift to the believing sinner and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the sinner himself doing anything to deserve or merit that righteous standing.




Allow the peace of God to rule in your hearts, Paul’s really making readily apparent the fact that not everyone will do so. We do not naturally gravitate naturally towards truth, nor towards agape behavior. But we do gravitate naturally towards those dealing around us by emotion. We let emotion, our emotion rule us. Yet, love is the bond that unifies and edifies other members of the body of Christ. Love is the behavioral glue, attitudinal adhesive that God intended to keep the body of Christ functioning smoothy and operating efficiently and effectively.

Words mean things or at least they are supposed to mean things! Justification is not a process, but is a one-time act, complete and definitive. God could only declare us to be right on the bases of who and what he is, not on the bases of who and what we would be apart from him. God had to devise a way to see us that way, and the way he devised to do that was by joining us to, hiding us in our perfectly righteous savior, thus freely crediting to our account Christ righteousness.

The realization that God’s love accomplished some fantastic things on our behalf. God is anxiously awaiting his own inheritance, which happens to be us, God considers believers to be his own inheritance, he purchased us with the blood of his son, we are God’s valuable inheritance. Sin causes a debt to God so large that it can never be paid by ourselves, but the person who knows what Jesus Christ really accomplished, exist in a completely new relationship with God. Justification is a legal act, wherein God deems the sinner righteous on the basis of Christ’s righteousness.




To many people obviously have behavioral characteristics in mind when they think of that word Christian, because they think forgiveness has to be paid for on the installment plan. But according to Paul we have all our forgiveness and we have it all upfront. The only reason God could say through Paul, “Grace and Peace be unto you” is because God’s son fully paid the price. Justification by grace through faith, what a marvelous thing God has done, and who would have thought of a salvation in the sense that God’s plan would call for him to join a person to his son, therefore, what belongs to the son would now belong to believing people who have been joined to the son.

Satan and his forces know the power that emotions play, when emotions become the cement that seals the door of the mind, such that a mind remains closed and the door locked. To be open to that which  moves a person from the mental comfort zone to which that person has become accustomed, becomes not only an unsettling inconvenience, it becomes a mind-shaking threat to many people. There are multitudes who are putting faith in their feelings, emotional cravings, the minds of the vast majority of so-called Christendom today, emotion trumps doctrine.


Could it be that God is NOT giving people all these emotion tweaking experiences, because he knows that Satan and his forces will come with all manner of lying signs and wonders. People may be going by a religious belief system that is a totally false belief system, why would God refuse to give people neat little things to look at today to determine his presence, his power, his predisposition, his purpose, and his plan? Could it be that God is having people walk by faith and not by sight, because God knew that Satan will be performing the miraculous in the last days of the age of grace.