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Author
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Topic: SATAN AND THE TRUTH
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Carol Swenson
Admin
Member # 6929
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posted
The Handbook of Bible Application
GRACE (Forgiveness, Love, Mercy)
What are some aspects of God’s grace?
BIBLE READING: Nehemiah 9:1-38
KEY BIBLE VERSE: But in your great mercy you did not destroy them completely or abandon them forever. What a gracious and merciful God you are! (Nehemiah 9:31, tlb)
God’s grace is our only hope!
Israel was devastated by times of intense rebellion and sin. Yet when the people repented and returned to God, he delivered them. God puts no limit on the number of times we can come to him to obtain mercy, but we must come in order to obtain it, recognizing our need and asking him for help. This miracle of grace should inspire us to say, “What a gracious and merciful God you are!” If there is a recurring problem or difficulty in your life, continue to ask God for help, and be willing and ready to make changes in your attitude and behavior that will correct that situation.
BIBLE READING: Ephesians 1:3-2:10
KEY BIBLE VERSE: In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. (Ephesians 1:7-8, niv)
God’s grace makes our salvation possible.
Grace is God’s voluntary and loving favor given to those he saves. We can’t earn salvation, nor do we deserve it. No religious, intellectual, or moral effort can gain it, because it comes only from God’s mercy and love. Without God’s grace, no person can be saved. To receive it, we must acknowledge that we cannot save ourself, that only God can save us, and that our only way to receive this loving favor is by faith in Christ.
God’s grace should lead us to serve others with love.
We become Christians through God’s unmerited grace, not as the result of any effort, ability, intelligent choice, or act of service on our part. However, out of gratitude for this free gift, we will seek to help and serve others with kindness, charity, and goodness, and not merely to please ourself. While no action or work we do can help us obtain salvation, God’s intention is that our salvation will result in works of service. We are saved, not merely for our own benefit, but to serve him and build up the church (Ephesians 4:12).
BIBLE READING: Romans 2:1-16
KEY BIBLE VERSE: Don’t you realize how patient he is being with you? Or don’t you care? Can’t you see that he has been waiting all this time without punishing you, to give you time to turn from your sin? His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. (Romans 2:4, tlb)
God’s grace leaves no room for self-righteousness.
When Paul’s letter was read in the Roman church, no doubt many heads nodded as he condemned idol worshipers, homosexual practices, and violent people. But what surprise his listeners must have felt when he turned on them and said, “You are just as bad!” Paul was emphatically stressing that nobody is good enough to save himself or herself. If we want to avoid punishment and live eternally with Christ, all of us, whether we have been murderers and molesters or whether we have been honest, hardworking, solid citizens, must depend totally on God’s grace. Paul is not discussing whether some sins are worse than others. Any sin is enough to cause us to depend on Jesus Christ for salvation and eternal life. We have all sinned repeatedly, and there is no way apart from Christ to be saved from sin’s consequences.
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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Carol Swenson
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Member # 6929
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posted
Luke 6:43
43 A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit.
Galations 5:22-23
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,23 gentleness, and self-control.
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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becauseHElives
Advanced Member
Member # 87
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posted
WildB , we must never forget this is Yahweh’s plan of salvation, we must never forget…
Jeremiah 17: 9-10…
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
Carol Swenson
quote:
How can we know when Satan is so deceptive?
We will know the truth if we love the truth!
Too many professing Christian love their Denomination or their favorite teacher’s interpretation of scripture more than they love Truth.
But Yahweh says we must love the Truth above everything else. The Truth is a person not a thing or idea. Yeshua is the Truth, Yeshua is the Word
2 Thessalonians 2:10
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
The Lord searches the heart, shows us what He desires of us. (“Grace” is “Yahweh’s Desires” placed in the heart of a man or woman and Yahweh’s Power to accomplish those same Desires!)
Take baptism, if I have been “saved?” and I read in the Word …
Mark 16:16
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
And I say how legalistic, I don’t need to obey that I am saved by “Grace”….
I can promise you, someone has a serious heart issue.
A person is not saved by act of baptism, a person is Saved by the Blood alone, but oh let us never forget the heart is the proving ground of all True Faith in that Blood!
The heart of every issue is the issue of the heart!
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Strive to enter in at the strait gate:for many, I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ( Luke 13:24 )
Posts: 4578 | From: Southeast Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
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Carol Swenson
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Member # 6929
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posted
WildB...
Important stuff!
How can we know when Satan is so deceptive?
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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oneinchrist
Advanced Member
Member # 6532
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posted
Hi Wild B.
I believe Cornelius Stam may be mistaken about something......Paul was not opposed to baptism.....even He was baptized after his encounter with the Lord on the road to Damascus. Since Jesus commands baptism we ought not to belittle baptism....unless we desire to speak against Him. Where I may come into agreement with Cornelius is the potential problem in putting too much trust on the outward things, instead of the inward. Some I would venture to say would also claim that Paul was opposed to the law of Moses.
With love in Christ, Daniel
Posts: 1389 | From: Wind Lake, WI | Registered: May 2007
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WildB
Moderator
Member # 2917
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posted
by Cornelius R. Stam
"If any man be in Christ he is a new creation..." (II Cor. 5:17).
"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus..." (Eph. 2:10).
"And ye are complete in Him..." (Col. 2:10).
"In Christ!" What a glorious truth! What a high and holy position! No religious ceremony, neither circumcision nor baptism, needed to make us spiritually complete. God only asks now: "Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called" (Eph. 4:1).
Many Christians are satisfied with salvation through the blood of Christ, but God wants us to have much more than this. He wants us to have "the full assurance of understanding" (Col. 2:2), to know the security, the blessedness, the glory of a position in Christ. He wants us to know "the exceeding riches of His grace" (Eph. 2:7), and to enjoy "all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 1:3).
But Satan does not!
For proclaiming these glorious truths the Apostle Paul was bitterly opposed on every hand, even by some saved religious leaders of his day.
And Satan has not changed!
Proclaim this message today and "your adversary the devil" will soon be roused to action. He hates this message of grace which the glorified Lord revealed through Paul (Eph. 3:1-3) and let us not be asleep to the fact that, as in Paul’s day, he will again seek to use even saved religious leaders, evangelical "big guns," if he can, to oppose it, thus robbing Christ of His glory and believers of their blessings.
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That is all.....
Posts: 8775 | From: USA, MICHIGAN | Registered: Mar 2004
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