God loved us so much that He gave us Himself.
“In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him”. 1 John 4:9 NKJV
Tag: eternal life
RENew Your Mind Because You Need To
If you’re child of God, you belong to a new life that will outlive the one now.
You need to renew your mind to adapt yourself to thinking with an eternal perspective.
I illustrated this point on my dad’s TV broadcast by pointing at his gray hair. Okay, it may have been a little personal, but I wanted the viewers to grasp the understanding that the life around us is dying.
Because of our sin, us and the world as a whole is decaying to the point of death. We will all die someday as the consequence of our sinful nature. We can dye our hair, conduct plastic surgery all we want, but the truth is our body is degrading. Bible describes man’s life as “his days are like grass” (Psalms 103:15 NKJV).
But we who belong to God shouldn’t fret at this because we understand life here is temporary. Rather we anticipate a new life where we will enjoy new glorifying bodies according to what Christ has promised us.
“And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.” 2 Corinthians 4:13-14 NKJV
We enjoy a shared faith in Christ that we “believe” and we profess to others, because we know that God who raised Jesus will raise us up as well someday.
1 John 3:2 advertises us the new bodies we will all enjoy:
“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
When we will unite with Christ, we will be like Christ. We enjoy a glorious body that has yet to be revealed and is so marvelous to describe. We won’t need to exercise and diet to modify and maintain it. It is an eternal body.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” 2 Corinthians 4:16 NKJV
We shouldn’t running around like the world, anxious to “immortalize” themselves with the latest cosmetics, because we know that we can’t preserve this body. Our focus is on the man who is being renewed within us.
This man is the new man who Christ has raised from spiritual death and made alive to walk in newness of life. This body is transformed into a new creation in Christ. The body is actually our human soul that is actually the true body. We are not body with a soul, but a soul with a body.
Being made alive to a reality that observes eternity, we “put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him” (Colossians 3:10 NKJV)
Our focus in life should be to nourish, build, mature, shape the new body to conform the wants of Christ and to be content in the pursuit of glorifying God. We understand that we are not our own because we belong to God in Him making us*, and in Him choosing us to become like Him.** And at salvation, we became doubly owned when God purchased us by Christ.***
We need to escape the world’s thinking. It’s still depraved to sin and it’s blinded from beholding eternity.
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” Romans 12:2 NKJV
Renewing our mind pretty much is changing our appetite. I once hated celery. I had to change my mind to understand that celery is good for my body. Now I eat celery, not because it tastes good, but because I know it does good for my body.
Once we build towards eternity, problems don’t bring us down.
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,
while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. -2 Corinthians 3:17-18 NKJV
The world doesn’t bog us down, because we are setting our eyes in eternal perspective. Quickest idea that comes to mind is a passenger given a parachute during his flight. The stewardess comes to him and informs him that the plane will eventually crash, and that he needs to take the parachute in order to survive. The passenger immediately takes the parachute and prepares himself for the jump to come. Let’s say during the course of the flight, the plane experiences turbulence, and a passerby spills hot coffee unto the lap of the passenger.
The passenger does react in pain, but he doesn’t mediate on it. He observes the coffee burn as a light affliction compared to the crash that would have incinerated him had he had not a parachute.
We don’t involve ourselves in the moans of this world, because we know that all our sorrows will all be evaporated one day in eternity. Instead, we run towards God against all odds, because we walk in faith on the promises of God that mark the path for us to walk against any logic that denounces it.
Faith is the eyes that beholds the visible against the invisible and moves out already in sheer confidence towards what he believes in his heart.
We are running towards God. We live by faith that all His promises in the Word are true to the ultimate extent that we act upon them.
But to do this, we need to be renewed in the spirit of [our] mind (Eph 4:23).
Don’t become so adjusted to the culture around that you fit right it. It’s dying! Set our eyes on heaven. It’s eternal! It’s real!
“If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.
Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” Colossians 3:1-4 NKJV
*Genesis 1:27:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over allthe earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
**Ephesians 1:3-4 :
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love…”
***1 Corinthians 6:20:
For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your bodyand in your spirit, which are God’s.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! + NEW YEAR V. BEST YEAR EVER
Every year is a hope for a better future. For us who are God’s children, every year is the hope for the best future to come! The return of Jesus!
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. (I Thessalonians 4:16, 17 NKJV)
One day, maybe even today at the eve of a new year, we will see Him breaking out of the sky in radiant glory. There all our sadness that glued us to mourning and hopelessness will fade as we open our eyes in a brilliant joy that will outweigh all excitement this world had ever or could ever muster.
We will rise when He calls us. The world and all its sorrows will look strangely dim to us, as depart from it to join Jesus Who will lead us to place He has prepared for us.*
And we will be with Jesus! Insecurity is be swallowed by eternal security. Doubt is shadowed by everlasting hope. Darkness is hidden by the Light of Jesus, for There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light.(Revelation 22:5 NKJV)
He will wipe every tear from our eyes “because the former troubles are forgotten….they are hidden from [our] eyes” Isaiah 65:16 NKJV).
“There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4 NKJV) All the things that once troubled us and weighed us with sigh and concern will be erased, leaving behind only the memories that lighten our hearts to the greatness of our great God.
Then as the it has been foretold in the Word of God, we will altogether cry in joyful praise and celebrate, singing this song to the Lamb:
“Great and marvelous are Your works,Lord God Almighty!
Just and true are Your ways,
O King of the saints! ” **
2013 sounds great and promising, but THE BEST IS STILL YET COME!
So honestly I want to go Home! So if Jesus can today, I’m hoping in the best future I can ever enjoy!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! I HOPE THIS YEAR WILL BE THE YEAR THAT JESUS COMES BACK!
LET’S BE READY FOR HIM!
*Luke 14:1-4 NKJV: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
**Revelation 15:3
Following Jesus When He is Hard to Understand
There is a lot about Jesus that you will believe but won’t understand. Following Jesus is accepting who He is, even when He is the stone in the way.*
Jesus became quiet the stumbling block in John 6:41-69. Jesus proclaimed Himself as the Bread of Life to be fed upon. He even details that to receive eternal life, one must eat His flesh and blood.
Here is a part of what He said: Then Jesus said to them,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. (John 6:53 NKJV)
This was a harsh blow to Jesus’ popularity. Verse 66 says because of His statements, many of His followers abandoned Him.
I won’t explain this passage. This is not my point. I want to challenge you to follow Jesus even when you can’t handle what He says.
There are places in God’s Word that are just theological stumbling blocks. But they are God’s Words.
An aspect of following Jesus is denying ourselves.** It is more than a daily sever of your pull to selfish pursuits and ungodly pleasures. It is also removing your will that will want to deter from God’s hard teachings.
We who want to wholly follow Jesus must respond to Jesus as Peter did:
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. (John 6:68 NKJV)
It hard to trust what is difficult to understand. But Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life***
*Chris Tiegreen, The One Year At His Feet Devotional, Tyndale, 2003.
**Luke 9:23
***John 14:6
On Suicide
What you won’t see in someone taking their life: taking their life in front of someone they sincerely love.
They won’t do it.
Because two things.
(1) They are too (honestly) selfish to value the feelings of those who actually really, really do care about them. (2) And they are too proud to tell them what is burdening them to the extent that they want to take their life.
It is selfish to assume that no one on the entire earth will miss you if you died. It is proud to be “too scared” to tell someone because you will “freak” them out.
Life does suck, but I believe you have enough life in you to change it than to escape it by your own hands.
One thing about wearing a mask is that it isn’t a face. You can take it off.
If you are scared what’s happening to you, don’t endure it alone: please tell someone you trust.
For Me, I trust Jesus. Not because He’s clique. But because I can’t see Him to attempt to hide myself, but He can see me and know that I am lying with my face.
It’s confronting, but it’s also relief. The relief comes because He says things like “I will give you rest”* and “I will never leave you”**.
This relief He offers is produced by His personal extravagant love.***
I do somewhat enjoy unable to see God Jesus, because as God, He already knows everything and everything about me so my masquerade with Him is pointless; But also as a man, He understands hurt, pain, depression, loneliness, rejection, isolation, peer pressure, apathy, etc.****
You may feel too weak to carry on with life, but you bulk immense strength not to leave life early at your own will.
Life is a War that is Fought with Will.
*Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28 NKJV)
**For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5 NKJV)
***The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. (Jeremiah 31:3 NKJV) This also applies to you. Because God loves all of us, He has provided the “bridge” over His anger against your wrong for you to enjoy Him:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 NKJV)
Accept His free forgiveness of your sins by trusting that He did actually rid of them by dying as God on the cross for payment and coming back to life (Rom 3:23-26); And switch to His plan for your life (Rom 12:1-2)
****For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. (Hebrews 2:18 NKJV)
FOLLOW THE SON 