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Jesus knew it was the Father's will for Him to be made an offering for the sins of the world. This is true because He prophesied His death and resurrection many times before. However, because of His unique relationship with God, Jesus was asking God to accomplish His will some other way, but at the same time affirming His commitment to do His Father's will and not His own.
He was not at a loss to know God's will and therefore, left this time of prayer trusting that whatever the Father deemed best for Him would happen.
He knew, when He began praying what the Father's will was and He knew at the close of His prayer, that God's will could not be accomplished any other way.
For us to pray, "Lord, if it be thy will" in response to a...
God the Father had the plan of salvation worked out before He even created the world. Most of us would not have created the world and man if we knew the heartache and terrible sacrifice it would cost. But God is not man. In His judgment (which is the correct judgment) the prize was worth the cost.
We were chosen in Christ before the world began. The Lord did not choose us by our merit, but solely by our acceptance of Christ which His foreknowledge allowed Him to do before the foundation of the world. In the strictest sense, we were not personally chosen, but Christ was chosen and all those who are "in Christ" partake of His being chosen by His Father. Just as we are the...
YESTERDAY I ASK IF YOU REALLY STUDIED GOD'S WORD AND THIS MORNING I WANT TO TELL YOU HOW MUCH FUN IT IS AND IT REALLY IS INTERESTING. I KNOW IT HAS GREAT PROMISES FOR ALL OF US AND TELLS US HOW TO LIVE, BUT I NOW AM TALKING ABOUT FINDING OUT INTERESTING THINGS THAT I DIDN'T REALIZE BEFORE OR EVER EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT.
God loves us the same as He loves Jesus. A true revelation of this will quicken our faith and allow us to walk in the fullness of God. God's love is the key that opens the door to everything that God is. "God is love" (1 Jn. 4:8).
God's love is not one dimensional. There is width, length, depth and height to it, which can only be comprehended through the revelation and knowledge of the Holy Spirit. Those who only have a superficial knowledge of God's love are like a person who looks at a one dimensional picture of the real thing.
In Ephesians 3:19, Paul prays for us to know the love of God which passes knowledge. How can we know the love of God if it passes knowledge? This sounds like a...
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Jesus is praying for all believers to be one as He and the Father are one.
This goes far beyond what many promote as unity today. Paul besought the Corinthians to "all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (1 Cor. 1:10). This is God's standard of unity.
This oneness among believers is what Jesus said would cause the world to know that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the greatest tool for evangelism that the church has. The only way that Christ's body will be one as the Father and Jesus are One is through God's kind of love. No wonder Satan tries to get believers to go at each others'...
We are not from the world. Through the new birth, we come from God and should constantly remind ourselves of this. It is not good to be too "at home" in the world. We are in the world but are not of the world. Great men and women of God have always had this attitude.
The primary reason that God chooses to use those who are nothing by the world's standards, is so no one else can take credit for the great things that are accomplished.
If the Lord used those who had it "all together" in the natural, then they would share the glory that rightfully belongs to God alone. But when the Lord works miraculously through someone who obviously has no talent or ability, then everyone says, "This must be God."
Not only does this keep others from misdirecting the glory that belongs to...