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Choose To Love
John 18:23 'Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?'
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...
Seek Greater Revelation
John 18:20 'Jesus answered him, I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.'
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...
PROSPERITY
DO YOU GIVE THANKS FOR YOUR BLESSINGS?
Prophesy - To Build Up The Body
Luke 22:64 'And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?'
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...
WHY I DO, WHAT I DO
The Silence Of The Son
Luke 22:63-64 'And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him. And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?'
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...
Hide The Word In Your Heart
Matthew 26:75 'And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.'
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...
