To get pearls, one must dive deep!

Month: June 2011 Page 1 of 3

Trinity of God :: In THE Salvation

From the Bible, we learn that in the Salvation of man, which comes solely by believing in Jesus Christ, we see the evidence of the Trinity of God at work.

God the Father selects,
God the Son saves by the sprinkling of his blood by which we have remission of our sins and
God the Holy Spirit sanctifies (1 Peter 1:2).

Without the work of the Trinity of God, three persons in One, one cannot be saved.

Points to ponder:
God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Have you believed in Jesus Christ? i.e., Have you received the Spirit of Jesus who sanctifies and saves you, so that you can address God who has selected you as Abba, Father.

1 Peter 1:2 (KJV)
2
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

Trinity of God :: In the Baptism

When Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist, we see the evidence of the Trinity of God. The voice of God (the Father) is heard from the opened sky, and we see the Holy Spirit of God, descending on Jesus Christ, God’s own Son (with whom God was well pleased), from heaven (Matthew 3:16-17). In baptism is the Trinity of God evident. Although belief in Jesus Christ and not the act of being dipped in water is essential for Salvation, the Apostle Peter writes that one must repent and be baptized for the remission of sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). We must be born of Water (Jesus the living water) and we must be born of the Spirit who is given as a gift upon believing in Jesus Christ and only when one is imputed the righteousness of Jesus Christ, can God then declare of that person, “this is my son/daughter, with whom I am well pleased!”

Point(s) to ponder:
If you were to be baptized today, what would God from heaven declare of you?

Acts 2:38 (KJV)
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Acts 22:16 (KJV)
16 And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.

Trinity of God :: In the Tower

The Bible records in Genesis 11, the attempt of man to reach God, by building a tower that reached unto heaven. This was a rebellious act of willful disobedience, for God had commanded the people to scatter and replenish the earth (Genesis 9:1), so that God’s name will be known to all the earth as these were the people of God, that came out of the flood (Genesis 10:32). But here the people rebelled to settle down in one place, in the land of Shinar (Genesis 11:1-2), wanting to make a name for themselves and not for God. But when the LORD saw this, the LORD said, “Let us go down” and God confused the language of the people making them babblers so that they could no longer be unified in their attempt to reach God by their own efforts.

From this account we can learn many hidden truths. The word “us” in “Let us go down” establishes the fact that the Trinity of God (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit) came down to the tower and visited man. Secondly, we see that the act of willful disobedience against God’s commandments is not treated lightly and it warrants the Triune God in One to visit man. Thirdly, when we attempt to make a name for ourselves instead of making the name of God known, we can expect to have a visitation of Trinity that confound our plans. Fourthly and most importantly, man cannot reach God unless God comes down to man. This is evident in God’s plan of Salvation and redemption as well. Until God came down to the earth He created, in the form of a man, being born of virgin, in a manger, in the city of David, as a Savior and Christ the Lord, man did not have access to reach the throne of God in heaven. However, when God came to us, in the form of his very own Son, Jesus Christ, to be with us (Immanuel), all who put their trust in him, believing in him, have access to God the Father, through his Son. In fact, Jesus said, no man can come to the Father (God), except through Jesus (John 14:6).Point(s) to ponder:

Points to ponder:
Are you/I in willful disobedience to God’s given commandments?
Are you/I trying to make a name for ourselves, instead of making the Name of God known (to the ends of the world)?
Are you/I trying to reach God in our own efforts?
Without Jesus, you and I cannot reach God and there is no confusion around that, for it is not the plan of man, but it is the plan of God.

Genesis 11:1-9 (KJV)
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
4
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

John 14:6 (KJV)
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Trinity of God :: In the Beginning

The Bible starts out by recording, In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth (Genesis 1:1) and from the original text, the word that is used to refer to God here is Elohim, which is plural in nature. The Spirit of God moved over the waters of a dark and void world and God spoke and there was light. But is there a mention of Jesus Christ in creation? We find this in the epistle that the Apostle Paul writes to the church at Colosse stating that Jesus Christ was in the creation of all things and it is in fact for Him that all things were created (Colossians 1:16). So we see that the Trinity (triune God-in-One) was actively involved in the creation. However despite the three personalities, God is one. There is unity in these personalities. Jesus himself makes it very clear that He and the Father (God) are one, and whoever has seen Him has seen the Father.

We also see the plurality of God (in the personality of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit), evident in the creation of man for God says, Let us make man in our own image (Genesis 1:26-27). The words “us” and “our” in that statement makes it clear that the three personalities of God (God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit) were actively involved in the creation of mankind. In fact, upon the creation of man, man was made, a Spiritual being on a physical journey and not a physical being on a Spiritual journey for the Bible teaches us that when the breath of God was breathed into man, made from the dust of the earth, man being a “living soul” (Genesis 2:7). But sadly, many a times, we act as living bodies and dead souls.

Point(s) to ponder:
How are you/I on this spiritual journey?
Is your life dark and void? If so, ask God to shine his Light (Jesus Christ) on you.
God has been personally involved from the beginning, in your creation, but blessed is the person who has become a new creation, by placing their trust in Jesus Christ. Are you a new creation?
Let us live our lives as living souls and dead bodies (dead to the flesh) and not the other way around!

Genesis 1:26-27 (KJV)
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Our Father :: The Protecting Father God

From the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples we can learn of many characteristics of the kind of God, Our Father, is. In this prayer, Jesus teaches us to request God to keep us from being tested/tempted and to deliver us from the evil one (the devil). This establishes the fact that God our Father is a Protecting Father. In the prayer of Jabez, one of the requests that Jabez made of God was that He be kept from evil and the Lord granted him his request (1 Chronicles 4:10). In other words, Jabez recognized that he needed God’s protection, because the evil one is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). Just as David fought the lion and the bear that tried to snatch a single sheep away from his fold (1 Samuel 17:34-35), God the chief and Good Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4, John 10:11) would not allow any of us, not even one, who have believed in His Son, and put ourselves into the safety of his protecting hands, from being snatched away by the evil one. Jesus assured us of this when he said, no one can pluck those who are in Christ from the Father’s hand (John 10:29). To pray for God’s protection so that we do not succumb to temptation and to be delivered from the evil one is in a sense, uttering the same prayer of Jesus from the Cross, “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)

Point(s) to ponder:

Have you/I surrendered our lives to God and placed our trust in Jesus to save us?
Have you/I asked God to keep us from being tempted and t0 rescue us from the evil one?
Have you/I committed our lives/spirit into the safety of God’s hand; for Our Father is a Protecting Father God.

Matthew 6:13 (NLT)
13 And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one: …

Our Father :: The Pardoning Father God

From the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples we can learn of many characteristics of the kind of God, Our Father, is. In this prayer, Jesus teaches us to ask God to forgive us our trespasses (sins) as we forgive those who sin against us. The not only mandates the condition that we must be forgiving of those who have hurt us, but more importantly, it establishes the pardoning character of God, our Father. In the five years that I have been a father, there has been times when our beloved son, Reuben has done something that disappointed and displeased my loving wife, Sangeetha and me, but as I reflect back on these fives years, despite that fact that we have disciplined him, I can’t quite think of anything, that we harbor or hold against him. We discipline, but we also forgive and for the most part forget. So how much more that God who fashioned me as a Father must be in his act of forgiving all of us, whom he has created in his own image.

It does not matter what we have done, where it be idolatry, dishonoring God’s name or his day, dishonoring our parents, murder, adultery, stealing, lying or coveting, or how far we have run from God, when we address him as Our Father, which we can only do if we have been redeemed by His Son Jesus Christ, He can’t help but forgive us and remembers our sins no more. The vilest offender can receive a pardon from God, irrespective of the gravity of the offense committed, because God the Father, is a pardoning Father God.

Point(s) to ponder:

Matthew 6:12 (KJV)
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Hebrews 8:12 (KJV)
12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

Our Father :: The Providing Father God

From the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples we can learn of many characteristics of the kind of God, Our Father, is. In this prayer, he teaches us to ask God to give us our daily bread. This establishes the fact that our God is a providing Father. Additionally, it also reflects the fact that God the Father is one who is willing to meet us daily. Jesus asserted this fact when he asked us to consider the birds of the air, which neither sow, nor reap nor gather, yet God the Father provides for their needs (Matthew 6:26). Interestingly, the Bible also records of birds (ravens) that were used by God to provide for the sustenance needs of God’s prophet, Elijah, twice daily (1 Kings 17:1-8). God as a Righteous Father is ready and willing to provide his children of what they ask him (Matthew 7:11), for He is a Providing Father God, but the important thing is that we must ask God (and not anyone else) – Give us this day our daily bread.

Point(s) to ponder:
Our asking of God not only affirms that God is a providing Father God, but it also demonstrate our ongoing (daily) dependence and reliance on Him to provide for our needs.

Matthew 6:11 (KJV)
11 Give us this day our daily bread.

Matthew 6:26 (KJV)
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

1 Kings 17:1-6 (KJV)
1
And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
2 And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying,
3 Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.
4 And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.
5 So he went and did according unto the word of the LORD: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.
6 And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.


Our Father :: The Powerful Father God

From the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples we can learn of many characteristics of the kind of God, Our Father, is. In this prayer, he teaches us to praise and give glory to the Name of God, our Father, and seeks that God’s kingdom comes and that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). He ends this prayer, by affirming that the kingdom is of God, and the power and the glory is God’s forever and forever (Matthew 6:13). If there is a kingdom there must be a King. While God is a Father to those redeemed by Jesus Christ, He is also a Powerful King. In fact, He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, not someone to be trifled with.

Jesus came and preached that the Kingdom of God is near. God’s kingdom is not in word, but in power (1 Corinthians 4:20). It is  the power of God that transforms men and women from sinners to saints; from unrighteousness to righteousness. No one who is unrighteous can enter into the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9). Only those who have been imputed righteousness, because they have believed in Jesus Christ (i.e., born again believers) can see the kingdom of God. (John 3:3). The Kingdom of God is not only a powerful kingdom, but it is also a righteous kingdom for God is THE RIGHTEOUS one and all who inherit his kingdom will be clothed with the righteousness of Christ Jesus. So when we pray to God the Father that His kingdom comes, we are indeed praying that righteous is imputed and that everyone believes in Jesus Christ, for without that exchange of our sinfulness for God’s salvation, one cannot see the kingdom of God or Him as a glorified and Powerful King.

Point(s) to ponder:
Are you part of the kingdom of God i.e., have you been born again? 

Matthew 6:10, 15 (KJV)
10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
13 … :For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

John 3:3 (KJV)
3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Our Father :: The Paternity of God

We celebrated Father’s day 2011 on June 19, 2011 and I wondered as to what kind of Father, our God is? As I wondered, I realized that the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples to pray not only addresses God as Father, but in it, are hidden many characteristics of the kind of Father that God, Our Father, is. When Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, he started out by addressing God as ‘Our Father’. This establishes the Paternity of God. However, even in our natural self, we don’t go around calling anyone other than our earthly father (biological/foster) as our father. In the same manner, only if we have been born into or adopted into God’s family, can we address God as Our Father. So how can one be born into or adopted into God’s family or in other words, what would give someone the right to address the Almighty Creator God as ‘Our Father’?

We can address God as Our Father, only if you have been born again into God’s family. To be born again is to be redeemed by the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Redemption comes by believing in Jesus Christ; believing that He is the Only begotten Son of God, and the Only Way to God the Father (John 14:6). Without believing (through faith), we cannot receive the Spirit of adoption in our hearts and without being adopted, we cannot address God as ‘Out Father’. The Paternity of God comes with the free gift of His Spirit being poured into the hearts of all who believe in Jesus Christ. When we believe, we receive as an inheritance the very essence of God which is eternal life, overcoming death and its power. When we believe in His Son Jesus Christ, God accepts and adopts us as His very own.

Many a times in the Bible, we see God saying, “I shall be their God and they shall be my people”, but in the consummation of the Scripture, from the book of Revelation, we see how God says to all who overcome by believing in Jesus Christ, “I will be his [her] God and he [she] shall be my my son [daughter]” (Revelation 21:7), implying that God will be ‘Our Father’.

Point(s) to ponder:
Can you address God as ‘Our Father’? In other words, “Have you been redeemed by the blood of His Son Jesus Christ?” i.e., Have you believed in Jesus Christ, God’s Only begotten Son? i.e., Have you been adopted into God’s family?

Matthew 6:9 (KJV)
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Galatians 4:4-7 (KJV)
4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Jesus practiced what he preached

Jesus preached: Greater love has no one than one who lays down his life for his friends (get reference).
Jesus practiced: He laid down his life for not just his friends but his enemies as well (Romans 5:10)

When one lays down his/her life for a friend, that love is deemed great. Then what kind of love is it, where one lays down his/her life for a enemy? Such love is far greater than great love.
We must practice what we preach as well just as Jesus did. While we were still sinners (enemies of God), Jesus died for you and me. He went beyond practicing what he preached. How about you/me?

Romans 5:8-10 (KJV)
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

John 15:12-13 (KJV)
12
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

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