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WE JUST NEED TO REMEMBER TO ASK IN HIS NAME. THAT IS WHAT HE TELLS US IN JOHN 14:13-14 WHERE HE SAYS "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it." THAT IS PRETTY CLEAR TO ME.
WE ALSO NEED TO REMEMBER TO ASK ACCORDING TO HIS...
Man looks on the outward appearance (this is what the scribes and Pharisees were concerned with), but the Lord looks on the heart (1 Sam. 16:7). Jesus looked on men's hearts. The Old Testament laws concerning washing served a secondary purpose of hygiene, but as stated in Colossians 2:16-17 and Hebrews 9:1,9-10, their real purpose was to shadow or illustrate spiritual truth.
Defiled food may hurt our bodies, but it cannot reach our spirits (Jn. 3:6).
The scribes and Pharisees missed the principle of spiritual purity taught by the Old Testament ordinances and became obsessed with strict adherence to their rituals. While they relentlessly enforced the laws dealing with the physical realm, they had become completely corrupt in the spiritual...
Jesus is stating that our spirit, not our flesh, is where our life comes from. These people were so dominated by their physical lives that they were missing all the spiritual significance of His words. Although God's Word does benefit our physical man, the Word is spiritual and must be understood through the spirit. God's Word is spirit and it takes our spirit to illuminate its truths to our minds.
The Word of God is not paper and ink. Jesus is the Word, and He existed in spiritual form long before any words were inspired to be written down by the Holy Ghost. The Bible is simply a physical representation of Jesus and spiritual truth. It is inspired of God and therefore, totally accurate and reliable, and yet, until we receive the Spirit expressed in these words the Bible will not...
DID YOU KNOW THAT HUNDREDS OF YEARS BEFORE JESUS, OUR LORD, WAS EVEN BORN, JEREMIAH WROTE ABOUT HIM IN JEREMIAH 29:11 SAYING " For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. I WOULD ASSUME THAT THE "EXPECTED END" WOULD BE OUR SALVATION AND OUR BEING ABLE TO LIVE WITH HIM FOREVER. THAT IS AN "expected end" I AM ENJOYING NOW AND WILL THROUGHOUT ETERNITY.
IN THE NEXT TWO VERSES, 12 AND 13, HE TALKS ABOUT US PRAYING TO...
This scripture, as well as Matthew 15:12, reveals that people will be offended by the Gospel. As much as possible, however, we should make sure that it is not ourselves that are offensive. But we cannot labor under the deception that everyone will receive the Gospel, even if the truth was presented properly. We know that Jesus represented His Father perfectly and yet most people rejected His message.
In these two instances, when Jesus realized He had offended the listeners, He didn't apologize and try to make concessions to gain their acceptance. Instead, He got harder. This hard message of commitment is not only beneficial to those who receive it, but it serves a dual purpose in that it exposes the "tares among the wheat."
It is important to be aware that the children of the wicked one are placed among the...
Many thought that Jesus was speaking of cannibalism, but He was speaking of the spiritual man. Just as the physical man receives life from the food he eats, so the spiritual man receives life as he partakes of Jesus, the life of men (Jn. 1:4; 10:10; 14:6) or the "Bread of Life." Just as the life of a root is found in the soil, or a branch in the vine, or a fish in the sea, so the believer's true life is found to be in union with Christ.
The Bible presents salvation as a life transforming experience. Change is one of the distinguishing characteristics of a true believer. Yet, failure to understand that this change takes place in the spirit first, and is then reflected in the outward thoughts and actions, proportional to the way we renew our minds, has caused much confusion. This change has to take place in our bornagain spirit. Why is...
The Old Testament prophets prophesied of a new covenant where we would all be taught of God. This is speaking of revelation knowledge that comes from within, through our spirit. Under the Old Covenant, God dealt with the Jews through the outer man. He did this because an Old Covenant man (who was not born again) could not perceive the spiritual truths revealed in the New Covenant by the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14). This difference between the old and new covenants is the reason why there had to be two covenants.
The Old Testament man was comparable to a child in his ability to grasp spiritual truth. It is impossible to explain spiritual truth to a young child, and yet, a child must be restrained from submitting to evil. So, the Word of God teaches us to use the "rod of...