The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
Tag Archives: Holiness
Exodus 25-31 describes the instructions God gave Moses about the building, accessories, and maintenance of the Tabernacle. Moses was told to request willing sacrifices of the people with which to make a dwelling place for God among them: “And this is the offering which you shall take of them: gold, silver, and brass; blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen; goats’ hair, rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins; shittim wood; oil for the light, spices for anointing oil and for sweet incense;…..
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Last week we explored the idea that God’s Grace teaches us to love God by bringing salvation to all mankind, teaches us to live in obedience to God, and teaches us to long for our eternal hope in God’s presence. In Scripture we are metaphorically referred to as the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, and the Bond-Servant of Christ. God’s Grace also teaches us the expression of love for him is the “acceptable sacrifices” of Hebrews 12:28-13:17, including…..
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What God’s Grace Teaches Us, Part 1
Throughout the Epistles, biblical writers greeted their readers with the desire that they receive grace and peace. Since Scripture is clear that salvation is an outcome of God’s grace, how would the believers who were addressed in the New Testament letters not already have grace? Like most aspects of our salvation, there are multiple meanings for the biblical term “grace” and they relate to differing tenses. In the past, the Grace of God…..
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“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 22-23).
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What Fellowship Is All About
In Hebrews 10:24-25 we are urged to “…consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.” In the New Testament there are numerous passages that address the expression of our unity in Christ through the mutual encouragement and provocation to holiness that is derived from…..
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Clean Hands
When you pray, do you ever feel like the echo of your own voice is the only response? There are several factors that can hinder our prayers like this, two of which are sin and spiritual warfare.
Psalm 24:3-4 designates the conditions of holiness by which we are able to enter God’s presence in prayer: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who shall stand in His holy place? He that has clean hands, and a…..
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Born Again, Part 3
To be born again entails faith that Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection was the final and only sacrifice required for the remission of sins and the cleansing of all unrighteousness for those who believe. Setting aside the legalism of the “thou shalt nots” involved in how we should then live as born-again believers, we are called to take positive steps towards the obedience that God both calls us to and enables us to do by His…..
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Born Again, Part 2
Part of Jesus’ explanation of the term “born again” to Nicodemus included “He that believes on Him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). Paul forcefully reiterates this in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh [i.e. their sin nature], but…..