The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
When we accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior by faith, we were “sanctified”. It means “set apart”. We are set-apart-ones to God from the moment of belief.
We spend the rest of our lives learning what that means, in pursuit of the Christ-like character, to follow Christ in the consecration of one’s self to God, and to apply the principles of God’s Word, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to the goal of separation from sin. This is…..
Reconciliation is the restoration of our broken relationship with God. When he sinned in the Garden of Eden, Adam broke the relationship of fellowship with God, not only for himself, but also for every human to be born afterwards. God gave Israel the Tabernacle, the priests, the rituals, and the sacrifices for temporary remission of sins. Until the cross of Christ, however, only a few people under the Old Covenant (the Old Testament) had the privilege of actual fellowship and…..
Regeneration is God’s response to our faith in Jesus Christ. When God created the world and everything in it, He created us in His image. But because we are naturally born spiritually dead in sin, His image in us is marred. When we accept His Son as our Savior, we are born again, our human spirit recreated back into the image of God.
Ephesians 2:1-4 explains regeneration in terms of a complete about-face from the bondage of sin: “You hath he…..
Justification is another attribute of salvation. It is the principle that, not only are we forgiven, but also our sin is completely forgotten, never to be brought up by God again: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). You are declared not guilty and all evidence of your sin is expunged, “just as if I had never sinned”.
The sin of the first man, Adam, caused sin…..
With salvation comes the remission and forgiveness of sin. God is able to forgive each of us our past, present, and future sin because Jesus paid the price for your sin as the ultimate one sacrifice for all sin.
Jesus Christ, God the Son, took the form of a human so that He could pay the price for our sin and save us from hell. Romans 5:8–9 tells us that “God commends (reveals) his love toward us, in that, while we were yet…..
Salvation is necessary because the rebellion and sin of Adam and Eve separated us from God and a penalty must be paid in order to tear down that separation. God’s righteousness and perfection preclude His fellowship with anything less righteous and perfect than Himself. In God’s perfect justice and righteousness, partiality towards or pardon of any sin or sinner would violate the need for a penalty as prescribed by His own Law. Nor could He judge all sinners with the…..
Our relationship with God is not one-sided. He created us for companionship with Him. In the Garden of Eden, He was in the habit of walking and talking to Adam. When sin entered, that fellowship was broken. When Jesus died on the cross and rose again, the chasm between us and God was bridged. As Christians we have that fellowship again, in prayer. In Matthew 7:7, Jesus tells us to “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye…..
“…I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the…..
In 2 Corinthians 6:14, Paul exhorts Christians, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?” There is no spiritual common ground between the saved and the unsaved. When we find ourselves in some way bound to unbelievers, whether in marriage or in business, it is the believer’s principles that are compromised.
As early as Abraham in Genesis 24:37, the necessity for the equal spiritual yoke was…..
We often hear the old adage “No pain, no gain” blithely stated in response to adversity in our lives. The Biblical version of this is found in 2 Cor. 12:10b, “when I am weak then am I strong.” Without suffering, pain, distresses, and hardships we would remain spiritually immature and untested (i.e. not challenged).
As teachers we try to find ways to challenge our more intelligent students while keeping the less intelligent students engaged as well – not an easy…..