Fight on. ( Galatians 5 v 16 )

Dick Lucas writes, 'In this life, the 'flesh ' remains to be mortified', as long as we live ,the apostle Paul writing to the church in Galatia , tells us we are called to be free, but that freedom does not mean we are to indulge the flesh .In chap 2 of Galatians Paul uses a number words in relation to our flesh, he describes the obvious things,'Sexual immorality,impurity ,lustful pleasures, idolatry,sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy,outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension,division, envy,drunkenness, wild parties, and then he adds,'and other sins like these'. (6 v 19- 21) He adds this solemn warning ,'That anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God'.Let me say this,Paul is writing  of a person who walks and lives  like this ,not to those who fall occasionally,it will happen that we will fall ,the most important thing then, is to it confess to God ,and forsake it.1John 1 v 9.We will fail at times in this, warfare against the flesh ,but we must not throw in the towel,but by God's grace,and the strength that comes from Him,  continue to fight the good fight of faith.

                                                      'Fight on ,don't give up'

What we value. ( 2 Peter 1 v 18- 19 )

If I was to ask you what you think is the most valuable thing in the world,what would you say?. I suppose the air that we breath,the fresh water  that we drink,the food that we eat,so many other things we could name,for many people it is sex ,a precious gift,if we keep within the bounds of what God permits. To the miser money is the most precious gift,but God says it is more precious to give than to receive.So we could on. I wonder whats most precious to God on planet earth? you are,Someone said ,'The soul of  man is worth more than a thousand worlds'. Sad to say that most people do not value their soul at all,in fact they live as if they have no soul.What is the soul? William  Hendriksen takes issue with those who say that man is composed of three parts,he says we have a two fold nature,that soul and spirit are interchangeable.The soul he points out is the  immaterial and invisible element of our being,this can never be annihilated.(Read WH commentary on John Page 470ff)The value of mankind's soul is beyond price,so much so that Jesus laid down life to save them,John 3 v16.

                                            'O teach me what it meaneth 

                                            The cross uplifted high.

                                             With one the man of sorrows

                                             Condemned to bleed and die

                                             O Teach me what it cost Thee,

                                             To make a sinner whole,

                                             And teach me, Saviour teach me,

                                             The value of a soul.

                                                        Lucy A. Bennett

                                     

9

There is a war going on. ( Ephesians 6 v 10 - 17 )

Yes there is a war going on,well that's nothing new,but it is not a war using military might,it is not even against flesh and blood.It is a spiritual warfare between, well it is what the scripture has to say.I will use Moffatt translation,'For we have to struggle,not with flesh and blood but with the angelic Rulers,the angelic Authorities, the potentates of the dark present, the spirit- forces of evil in the heavenly sphere. '    There is in this world an invisible enemy, who rarely shows his face.Rutherford  writes,'The Father of lies(Satan) works his deadliest havoc by,'' shamming dead'' and writing his own obituary in  unctuous terms'.In other words he wants people to believe he doesn't exist.But as Christians we must take him very seriously, we are not to become paranoid,but we must not ignore the fact that he exists.He is a mighty foe,and we have to contend with him ,it is E.K.Simpson who writes the following,'The Christian soldier must not dream of entering on this spiritual warfare at his own charges or with his own equipment. Let him cry  with David, ''It is God that girdeth me with strength; He teaches my hands to war''.The apostle Paul writes ,'Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might'. (Ephesians 6 v10)

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Come and see. ( John 9 v 25 )

 In John 1  we read how Philip went to his friend Nathanael  he told him about Jesus ,he said to him,'We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law,and about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph'. Nathanael replied ,'Nazareth! can anything good come from there?' Come and see', said Philip. Nazareth  had a bad reputation,we all know of such places,we would not to live in such places. In spite of Nathanael's reluctance he went to see,and Jesus first words were.'Now here is a genuine son of Israel, a man of integrity'. He had never met Jesus,yet Jesus knew him,just like the woman at the well John 4,Jesus  told Him he knew Him before he ever met him 1 v48, What Jesus said convinced Nathanael. from that moment on, everything changed for Nathanael, like a blind man who had walked in the darkness ,now he could see,yes all things were changed.

                                                           'Come and see'

Our only hope. ( Colossians 3 v 1 - 4 )

 I enjoy watching my country playing rugby,recently they beat the great  New Zealand team twice,which is no mean feat. It is one sport that all Ireland is represented ,North and South,can Ireland ever be united as a nation?,I don't know,in the North we have two divided communities ,a great deal of  animosity still exists, so many countries are divided, politicly, racially,then you have the needy and the greedy,the haves and the have nots. That's not counting the wars and the conflicts in marriage  and many other divisions,is there no hope?, will things never change?,no, in fact it will get worse,until one day,hopefully soon  Christ will return,and usher in a new heaven and a new earth, those who have not come to Christ will not be part of it.I say this with great sadness ,for they will be eternally lost existing in that place of eternal punishment,it is very painful to write this,but out of love I must.God desires that all will be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth in Jesus Christ.

                                                     'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ

                                                      and you shall be saved.

                                                              Acts 16 v 31.

That other one ( 1 John 3 v 8 )

 In Ephesians 2 v 1-3,the apostle highlights  the Christians in Ephesus state before they came  to Christ, they used to live in sin ,refusing to obey God, they followed their  passionate desires and inclinations of their sinful nature. But that is not all ,for he mentions that they obeyed the devil, oh yes there is a devil,it is like sin he never gets a mention even by Christians. He is the commander of the powers of the unseen world,again I would like to quote E.K.Simpson,'We are all under spiritual influence of some sort',he is called the god of this world (2 Cor 4 v4)in essence there is only one God cp Isaiah 46 v9,those other so called god's are what people have made them.Satan has sought to be God,remember the last so called temptation that Jesus experienced was , if he would give Satan worship, he would be rewarded,our Saviour rejected that.Again E.K.Simpson writes,''The Lord of misrule has his myrmidons at work in every continent, imbued with his own passion  of lawlessness.And what other verdict can we pass on the fiendish atrocities perpetrated by Adolf Hitler  and his accomplices in the last war? Were they not hatched in hell in order that these instruments of darkness( to borrow Shakespeare's phrase) might glut their rabid bloodthirstiness  with infamous carnivals of slaughter and torture'.

Sin is costly ( Romans 6 v 23 ) (1 )

 Writing to the church at Ephesus the apostle reminds them of their former state (2 v 1 -3 ),what he wrote to this church applies to everyone who has  trusted Jesus as their Saviour. He does not write these things to humiliate them,but to remind them how much they are indebted to God for showing them mercy, love and grace.He commences by saying,'Once you were dead,because of your disobedience and your many sins'.It is a very sombre statement,and as we go on reading it does not get any better.Every human being is born dead,spiritually dead,it came about when Adam and Eve  sinned ,death passed upon them (Genesis 2 v 17) That means we were cut of from the living God, spiritually dead.Let us consider what follows,'You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world,obeying the devil- the commander of the powers in the unseen world.'There are two things here mentioned, sin and Satan. Writing on sin E.K.Simpson describes sin in the following way,'' Sin is an organic  epidemical malady, a slow  devitalizing poison issuing in moral necrosis; not a stage of arrested or incomplete development , but a seed -plot of impending ruin'.It effects all humanity,as Simpson puts it ,'Their souls have no windows'. Blind spiritually they stumble on,until they stumble into hell itself. There is plenty of evidence as to the awful consequence of sin  in life and in eternity,and there is only one answer,it is God's answer, Jesus, who came to save sinners ,like you and me.