God's kind of love is not self-serving or self-seeking. Agape love will cause a person to lay down his life for another (Jn. 15:13), because he has literally forgotten himself. Many times when heros are asked why they put themselves in jeopardy to save someone else, they reply that they didn't even think about themselves. All they thought of was the danger to the other person. That's God's kind of love.
God's type of love involves emotions many times, but it is not an emotion. It is an act of the will. We can choose to love even when we don't feel like it and we can always conduct ourselves in a godly manner, when we feel God's kind of love. God's kind of love is a choice.
God's kind of love is also the antidote to selfishness and pride. We cannot conquer...
The truths of God are hidden for His children, not from them. The Holy Spirit has been instructed to teach us all things (Jn. 14:26) and has given us an unction so that we will know all things (1 Jn. 2:20). We only have to appropriate what is ours.
What God desires His New Testament saints to know, that the Old Testament saints could not know, is "Christ in you the hope of glory." The coming of the Messiah was predicted in the Old Testament, but the idea that He would actually dwell in us was beyond anyone's imagination. However, the New Testament is clear that Christ, by the Holy Spirit, takes up permanent residence in all believers. This is a wonderful truth that some fail to fully appreciate....
I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT THIS BEFORE BUT FEEL I NEED TO REPEAT A FEW THINGS. WHEN YOU PRAY FOR GOD TO HEAL YOU OR SOMEONE ELSE AND SAY "IF IT IS YOUR WILL", TO ME, THAT IS LIKE A SLAP IN THE FACE TO JESUS. JESUS TOOK ALL OF OUR SICKNESS AND DISEASES AND BY THE STRIPES HE TOOK FOR US WE WERE HEALED. (1ST PETER 2:24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.) SOME PEOPLE SAY THIS IS TALKING ABOUT BEING HEALED OF OUR SINS, HOWEVER, ISAIAH PROPHESIED ABOUT JESUS DOING THIS SOME 600 YEARS BEFORE JESUS WAS EVEN BORN. (ISAIAH 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Teaching and learning in the scriptures, are much more than academic. It involves being guided by God's principles in relationship to others, as well as knowing and responding to God. It calls for the learner to put the Word of God into practice, not just hear it (Jas. 1:22). It involves hearing a word from the outside and putting it on the inside, so that it may be expressed in our every action. Proverbs 2 tells us to incline our ear unto wisdom, apply our heart to understanding, cry after knowledge, lift up our voice for understanding, seek her as silver, search for her like hidden treasures, and then we will understand and find the knowledge of God (Prov. 2:1-7). God says, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6), and He...
Here is the account of God's own creation mocking and insulting His Son without Him intervening. The pain that this must have caused the Father defies description.
Those who struck Jesus and told Him to prophesy who it was that struck Him, must have taken Jesus' silence as proof that He was not who He claimed to be.
The natural mind could not conceive that Almighty God would take this kind of abuse from His creation. But this was the plan of God.
Isaiah prophesied that, as a lamb before its shearers is dumb (Isa. 53:7), so Jesus would not open His mouth. Isaiah also mentioned that Jesus "was taken from prison and from judgment" referring to the fact that He...
There are several Greek words used for "word." The Greek word used here is RHEMA and it literally means, "a spoken word; an utterance, a saying, but specifically a spoken word appropriate for the situation." It's not the Bible lying on your coffee table that makes the enemy flee, but the Word of God hidden in your heart, activated by the power of the Holy Spirit, and spoken in the appropriate situation. It's similar to what Jesus says in John 6:63, that "the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life."
The words that we speak from the written Word of God are empowered by the Holy Spirit. The Word by itself doesn't make us free. It is the Word we know and speak that will deliver us (Jn. 8:32).
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