The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
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…..
Although the information coming out of CDC is sometimes questionable these days, their sleep needs chart draws from several reputable studies. Here’s how much sleep their website suggests, by age, for optimal health levels (https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about_sleep/how_much_sleep.html):
Many people struggle to maintain healthy sleep habits for a variety of reasons including outside disruptors, work schedules, and emotional burdens. God’s promise of rest in Matthew 11:28…..
The living sacrifice described in Romans 12:1-5 involves our personal commitment to habitual and continuous worship of God demonstrated by the way we think and live. Each verse presents a different aspect of our daily lives permeated by God: Personal Holiness, Personal Purity, Personal Humility, Personal Collaborative Approach, and Personal Perspective of Unity in Christ. Today we will look at verse three.
3. Personal Humility – “For I say to every man that is among you, through the grace given unto…..
Once we have, by faith, accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we spend the rest of our lives learning what that means. Some define this process as a developing maturity of faith, others as a progressive sanctification. Setting semantics aside, it is God’s training of His people through biblical instruction towards both foundational support for our earthly journey and preparation for eternity in Heaven. With time we develop an increasing sense of Bible-centric attitudes and actions as we experience…..