Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything.
(2 Corinthians 2:9)
Everywhere you place your feet, you take the Kingdom.
The foot is to the body what the will is to the soul.
We go wherever our will takes us.
Preparation, the Christian’s spiritual readiness, is our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way—-Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
No man comes to the Father but by (through) Him.
which is willing, available and enabled by His Holy Spirit to WALK WITH HIM (her Bridegroom)
This is what God joins together no man can tear asunder or separate.
HE IS JOINING US TO HIMSELF. Whatever we have here and now is as a DOWRY
yet it could never measure up to ALL HE HAS DONE FOR US & GIVEN TO US!
His love sets us free to be HIS in body, soul and spirit!
Who the SON sets free is free indeed.
Free to walk with Him in spirit and in truth.
Fear paralyzes.
the ones who–by faith–endured by going through and did not worry what the neighbors might think–
This is how then we should pray before our heavenly Father…
nothing material,
nothing temporal,
can stand against the ETERNAL LORD for He created all things for HIS glory.
Our faith stands the test–we trust His Word.
We do not betray His trust; we get over “it” and keep walking in His will.
(This is our spiritual worship; our obedient trust).
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
and turning it over to the Lord.
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. (2 Corinthians 10:4)
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. (2 Corinthians 10:3) The work of the ministry is a spiritual warfare with spiritual enemies, and for spiritual purposes.
And set myself on the rampart,
And watch to see what He will say to me,
And what I will answer when I am corrected.
(Habakkuk 2)
The Just Live by Faith
Then the Lord answered me and said:
“Write the vision
And make it plain on tablets,
That he may run who reads it.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come,
It will not tarry.
“Behold the proud,
His soul is not upright in him;
But the just shall live by his faith.
(Habakkuk 2:1-4)
When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the heavenly altar the souls of those murdered for holding fast to the word of God and their testimony.
They cried out in a great, singular voice.
Murder Victims: How much longer, O Lord, the holy One, the true One, until You pronounce judgment on the inhabitants of the earth? Until You avenge our blood?
Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest for a little while longer—soon their number would be complete.
In a little while, more of their fellow servants, brothers, and sisters would be murdered as they had been.
(Revelation 6:9-11)
God is not Premature; God is not Incomplete or Half-Baked
Unity in the Body
… for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; (Ephesians 4:12-14)
“But the Lord is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
(Habakkuk 2:20)
Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.
(1 Corinthians 14:20)
My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. (Galatians 4:19)
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better. (Ephesians 1:17)
which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way. (Ephesians 1:23)
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:
Not a mere head knowledge, or bare acknowledging Christ to be the Son of God, but such as brings trust and obedience.
Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.
We have this in store for the disobedient: it will be brought into action in due time.
We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. (1 Corinthians 2:6)
We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete. You are looking at things as they are outwardly. If anyone is confident in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again within himself, that just as he is Christ’s, so also are we. (2 Corinthians 10:5-7)
For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may …(Zephaniah 3:9)
And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall …(Zechariah 14:9)
That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in Me, and I in You, …(John 17:21)
And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul…(Acts 4:32)
Now I beseech you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, …(1Corinthians 1:10)
Psalm 133
A song of David for those journeying to worship.
How good and pleasant it is
when brothers and sisters live together in peace!
It is like the finest oils poured on the head,
sweet-smelling oils flowing down to cover the beard,
Flowing down the beard of Aaron,
flowing down the collar of his robe.
It is like the gentle rain of Mount Hermon
that falls on the hills of Zion.
Yes, from this place, the Eternal spoke the command,
from there He gave His blessing—life forever.
Stepping Out in Faith
Learn to take it in your stride.
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him.
(Colossians 2:6)
Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order to provide for urgent needs and not live unproductive lives. (Titus 3:14)
For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:8)
We ask this so that you will live the kind of lives that prove you belong to the Lord. Then you will want to please him in every way as you grow in producing every kind of good work by this knowledge about God. (Colossians 1:10)
That we would walk worthy of Him.
The standard of spiritual “stature” is “the fulness of Christ,” that is, which Christ has (Ephesians 1:23; 3:19; compare Galatians 4:19); that the body should be worthy of the Head, the perfect Christ.
Thanksgiving and Prayer
For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously (Colossians 1:9-11)
Remember the 3 tests of GOD’S WORD OF TRUTH AND HIS ENDURING FAITHFULNESS of Jesus in the WILDERNESS.
The same applies to us today!
We need the continual abiding presence of His HOLY Spirit to lead and guide us into ALL truth every step of the WAY!
OUR FEET ARE SHOD
ABLE TO STAND AND ENDURE ALL THINGS
READY TO GO WHERE HE SENDS FOR HIS GLORIOUS NAME’S SAKE
Deuteronomy 8:2
And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
Revelation 2:5
Remember therefore from where you have FALLEN; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place, unless you repent.
The HIGHWAY of the upright is to depart from evil; He who watches his WAY preserves his life. Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before STUMBLING. It is better to be humble in spirit with the lowly Than to divide the spoil with the proud.
(Proverbs 16-19)
When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. (Proverbs 11:2)
Whoever loves a quarrel loves sin; whoever builds a high gate invites destruction. (Proverbs 17:19)
Before a downfall the heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor. (Proverbs 18:12)
Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor. (Proverbs 29:23)
The LORD gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, How blessed is the man who trusts in You! (Psalm 84:11)
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:11)
Fear the LORD, you His holy people, for those who fear Him lack nothing. (Psalm 34:9)
The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. (Psalm 34:10)
Surely His salvation is near those who fear Him, that His glory may dwell in our land. (Psalm 85:9)
In the end of time, Jesus returns for He is the Beginning and the End of all time from Everlasting to Everlasting, He is LORD.
When He returns will He find you watching and waiting for Him faithful and standing true?
…The wicked are not so, But they are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked will perish.
(Psalm 1:4-6)
“Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell— and great was its fall.”
(Matthew 7:26-27)
After Jesus had finished His teaching about forgiveness, He left Galilee and He went to the section of Judea on the other side of the Jordan River. Large crowds followed Him, and when He got to Judea, He set about healing them.
The religious leaders who are eyeing the crowds and watching the healings decide it is again time to try to trip up Jesus.
So some Pharisees approached Jesus and asked Him this tricky question about divorce:
Pharisees: Is it ever lawful for a man to divorce his wife?
Jesus: Haven’t you read that in the beginning God created humanity male and female?Don’t you remember what the story of our creation tells us about marriage? “For this reason, a man will leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” If a husband and wife are one flesh, how can they divorce? Divorce would be a bloody amputation, would it not? “What God has brought together, let no man separate.”
Pharisees: Why did Moses explain that if a man leaves his wife, then he must give her a certificate of divorce and send her away, free and clear of him?
Jesus: Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But divorce was an innovation, an accommodation to a fallen world. There was no divorce at creation. Listen, friends: if you leave your wife, unless there is adultery, and then marry another woman, you yourself are committing adultery. Only if there is adultery can you divorce your wife.
Why? Because adultery itself is the divorce. Adultery is the thing that breaks the bond of marriage. Just as an excommunication merely recognizes the fact that someone has already been removed from the people, a divorce merely legalizes what harlotry has created. But should someone leave his wife for any other reason—because he has nothing to say to her, because she continually burns his food, because she is profligate with the household resources, because he simply cannot stand the sight of her—this is outside of the message Jesus offers here. If we behave as if a marriage has been undone—indeed, some may believe that a marriage has been undone—then we are deluding ourselves. In the eyes of God, the marriage bonds still hold a man to his wife.
Disciples: If this is how it is, then it is better to avoid marrying in the first place.
Jesus: Not everyone can hear this teaching, only those to whom it has been given. Some people do not marry, of course.
Some people are eunuchs because they are born that way, others have been made eunuchs by men, and others have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Anyone who can embrace that call should do so.
At this, some of Jesus’ followers brought their children before Jesus; they wanted Him to place His hands on the children and pray for them. Some of the disciples, mistakenly thinking that Jesus wouldn’t want to be bothered with the likes of children, began to rebuke the crowd.
Jesus: Let the little children come to Me; do not get in their way. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to children like these.
He laid His hands on them, He prayed with them, and then He left that spot and went elsewhere.
Then a young man came up to Jesus.
Young Man: Teacher, what good deed can I do to assure myself eternal life?
Jesus: Strange that you should ask Me what is good. There is only One who is good. If you want to participate in His divine life, obey the Commandments.
Young Man: Which Commandments in particular?
Jesus: Well, to begin with, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.
Young Man: I’ve kept those Commandments faithfully. What else do I need to do?
Jesus can see the man wants to know how to participate in God’s reality, and He knows his shoulders will sag under the weight of the next hard instruction.
Jesus: If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give all your money to the poor; then you will have treasure in heaven. And then come, follow Me.
The young man went away sad because he was very wealthy indeed.
Jesus: This is the truth: it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Yes, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
The disciples, hearing this, were stunned.
Disciples: Who then can be saved?
Jesus: People cannot save themselves. But with God, all things are possible.
Peter: You just told that man to leave everything and follow You. Well, all of us have done just that. So what should we be expecting?
Jesus: I tell you this. When creation is consummated and all things are renewed, when the Son of Man sits on His throne in glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on thrones. There will be twelve thrones, and you will sit and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. You who have left your house and your fields, or your brothers and sisters, or your father and mother, or even your children in order to follow Me, at that time when all is renewed, you will receive so much more: you will receive 100 times what you gave up. You will inherit eternal life. Many of those who are the first will be last, and those who are the last will be first.