OUR LORD'S WORDS MAKE US CLEAN

In the book of John chapter 15 verse 1 - 4 , Jesus, speaking to His Disciples, said:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit. 

“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

This passage marks a puzzling doctrine where the words Jesus spoke cleansed His listeners.

What does this mean?

Paul the Apostle mirrors this concept in the book of Ephesians 5 verse 25 - 27.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 

Here, the bride of Christ attains sanctification by being subjected to the washing of water with the word. 

The effect of God's word on his people is to cleanse them of spots, wrinkles or such blemishes leaving them holy and blameless.

In John 17 verse 16 - 19, Jesus said:

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

In this case, God's truth sanctifies us and God's word is truth so the doctrinal position of the cleansing power of the word of God is strengthened.

How does the word of God cleanse us or by what principle or law do the words of God purify us?

Firstly, the word of God, because it is truth, will accurately judge our thoughts and intentions. Subjecting ourselves to the word of God exposes our wrong internal attitudes that we cultivate and we are given the opportunity to correct our hearts and discard the delusions about ourselves that we so easily adopt into our lives.

Hebrews 4 verse 12 says this about the word of God's ability to expose the hidden condition of our hearts.

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

The word of God is sharp and acts as a scalpel that can reach deep into our human structure to the very boundary of  our souls and our spirits.  At this depth,  the thoughts and intentions (the contents of our hearts and our true motives)  are laid bare and the word of God gives us the tools to excise them if they are misplaced or inappropriate.

Secondly, the word is  like  a mirror that reflects back to us our true status related to our personal attentivenes and obedience to God.

 James chapter 1 verse 22 - 24, says it like this;

 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror  and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom,and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

As much as we possibly can, we should stay under the teaching of word of God so that the process of sanctification can reach completion in us. We should let the word of God continually wash us and over time, we will find that we have been transformed and refined to be closer to the image of our Lord Jesus.

Bless our Lord.

Amen.

Some reference help from www.diannethornton.com

THERE IS A GOD IN HEAVEN

V1 : 

There is a God in heaven

Who by His power He made all things

There is a God in heaven

Who is enthroned as King of Kings × 2

V2 : 

Cause He came down from heaven

He died to pay the price for me

The blessed Son from heaven

Poured out His blood to set me free

V3 : 

The Lamb of God from heaven

Dead three days then did ascend

There is a God in heaven

Of whose great kingdom shall be no end

Bridge : 

There is a God in heaven

There is a God in heaven

There is a God in heaven

There is a God in heaven. ×2

Verse 3

Verse 1

Amen

OUR LORD WHO SEES, HEARS AND KNOWS 

It is not uncommon to hear people posit that there is no God or that if there was a God, He does not see or is indifferent to the things going on earth.

The psalmist, in Psalm 94 verse 3 - 10, confronts this incorrect perception in this passage;

Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?

How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?

They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, and afflict thine heritage.

 They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.

Yet they say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.

Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?

He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?

He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? 

he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?

Here, the logic applied counters the notion being posited that God does not hear by illustrating that it is impossible to conceive of a creator who engineered the marvel of human audio capabilities while He himself was unable hear?

At the very least, the God who designed the audio sensory organs would have some interest in what was being transmitted by sound waves including the speech of people. 

It is  illogical to suggest that an indifferent, blind and deaf God would have purposelessly undertaken the technical tasks of designing eyes, ears and other senses and then, even more technically mind-boggling,  biologically encode these sensory technologies into our DNA.

The caution of the psalmist is that we would be delusional to proceed with life as though there is no accounting for the things we do to a God who sees, hears and knows all things.

Bless our Lord and God.

Amen.

OUR LORD WHO SET HIS FACE TO FLINT

In Isaiah 50 verse 6 - 7, the prophet records a subtle detail about the preparation the Lord Jesus Christ made when the time of His humiliation and crucifixion was upon Him.

The passage reads this way:

I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. 

Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.

This searing portion of scripture describes the ordeal that our Messiah had to endure for our sake. In the hands of His persecutors, He was going to be scourged, punched in the face, slapped, mocked and ultimately put to a terrifying death.

Our Lord, unfailingly  obedient to the Father, set His face to flint to muster every fiber of His body into staying absolutely steadfast as He was going through each gruelling stage leading up to His death on the cross.

Calling on every  inner resource, including the assurance that the Lord His Father would help Him, Jesus clenched His jaw and knitted His brow and locked His stare so that no part of Himself would quaver at the horror He faced.

There is none like Jesus.

In all eternity and all existence, there is none like Jesus.

Amen.

OUR LORD WHO GIVES US GIFTS

In a demonstration of His kindness, our Lord will many times give His children gifts to encourage them along their way. The Lord Jesus described the nature of these gifts using a contrasting metaphor in Mathew 9 verse 9 - 11.

Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

Here, the Lord our God is shown to be generous with good gifts that He gives to His children just for the asking. In this category of gifts that the Lord gives, His child could ask for a gift and our Father in heaven would surpass any human father in fulfilling the request by the giving of good gifts.

1 Corinthians 12 verse 7 - 11 lays out another category of gifts where the gifts are spiritual abilities that are given to individuals. The individuals, then develop the giftings that are in them and they are then able to use the gifts for ministering to each other for the benefit of the body of Christ as a whole by the guidance of the Spirit of God.

But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man for profit.

For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;

To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;

To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another various kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:

But in all these works that one and same Spirit, dividing to every man individually as he will.

Our Lord also gives His people gifts of a different and more demanding category. In Ephesians 4 verse 7 - 13, the Apostle Paul outlines the way that God gives people, operating in various capacities, as gifts to the church. The passage goes like this:

But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, And He gave gifts to men.”

(Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) 

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 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. 

Here, a  person is called and prepared by God to have specialized ministry skills that are constructive to the lives of the people of God and the church in general. 

Thus, the three kinds of gifts of God are dispersed among His people: Personal gifts, spiritual gifts and  the gift of able ministers prepared by God for good works.

Bless the Lord our God.

Amen.

OUR LORD WHO MARKS US AS HIS

Famously, the "mark of the beast" is the indelible tag that people aligned with the kingdom of darkness are identified by.

Less widely known but more important, is the mark that is used to identify the people of God.

A pre-figuration of this identification of God's people is the blood of the lamb that was painted over the doorways of the homes of the Israelite slaves in Egypt. When the plague of the angel of death was released in Egypt, the blood of the lamb on the doorway signaled the angel of death to pass over that household. ( Exodus 12 )

Another passage that discusses a mark that identifies the people God is Ezekiel 9 verse 3 - 4.

Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed in linen at whose loins was the writing case. 

The LORD said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst.”

Here, the people who were to be marked by the angel of the Lord were those who recoiled at the atrocities that were occurring in their communities. This sensitivity was the deligneating factor that separated those who were to be spared and those who weren't.

The most expansive and far reaching expression of an identification mark is the seal of the Holy Spirit that is described in Ephesians 1 verse 4 - 5.

In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

This seal, which is an eternal mark of redemption confered on a person who has believed in the power of Jesus to save,  is the royal seal of the Holy Spirit who is given as a type of  down payment on each individual.

The presence of this pledge signifies that the Lord will return with the full payment to collect whom He has promised to save.

Bless the Lord who positively identifies His people.

Amen.

OUR LORD RESTORES WHAT WAS LOST 

The Lord our God, in His care for His people, is mindful of the sustenance we need and He promises His people that He will restore to them what is lost in time and material.

The prophet Joel, in Joel chapter 2 ver 25 - 26, describes a scenario where the Lord's promise is applicable:

“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, The crawling locust The consuming locust, And the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you.

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, And praise the name of the Lord your God,Who has dealt wondrously with you; And My people shall never be put to shame.

As children of the Lord, all manner of enemies target us to devour the substance of our lives as part of the strategy to derail us from our purpose and destiny in the kingdom of God.

We must not to fret or despair for the Lord is able to restore to us what we need and provide for us in everyway. The Lord does not want us to  be discouraged and to be side-tracked with fighting and struggling for what was ours. 

If we leave things to Him, trusting in His goodness towards us, He will undertake to restore what we lost.

Bless the Lord.

Amen.