tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10905506.post419275822430452867..comments2023-05-24T11:46:22.159-04:00Comments on Voice of Grace: A Bunch of Rubbish or Jesus?julhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15688008902332240637noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10905506.post-12437708780491420702010-05-31T19:32:49.033-04:002010-05-31T19:32:49.033-04:00you are invited to follow my blogyou are invited to follow my blogSteve Finnellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15041851737677873347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10905506.post-30009463901197492202010-04-15T09:42:31.393-04:002010-04-15T09:42:31.393-04:00I agree with you Jul's, the 'work,' Jo...I agree with you Jul's, the 'work,' John 6:28-29, is the 'will of My Father,' Matt.7:21, that is 'THE COMMANDMENT' in 1John 3:23-24. I like to ask this question for those who put out 'not everyone & many shall say' in Matt.7 that "What is the will of my Father" in Matt.7:21? & What are the "works" James is speaking of in that letter? If 'no man (everyone)' is justified by 'the works' of the law, then 'what works' must I 'do' to be saved? It is 'to believe on the One who God has sent, Jesus Christ.' Hebrews 4, states "He (you or me) who have entered into His (Gods) rest (Jesus) has CEASED (STOPPED) from his (you or me who believe in/on Jesus) own works (the law & ceremonies, feast days, Levitical diet & rituals) and now we 'work/labor' to enter into His rest. Example: When I am bothered or began to worry about income, I labor to enter into His rest, that is, I labor/work to enter into what Christ has done for me to prosper which when I began to be at rest with what Christ has done, I am now 'doing the will of God which is believing on the Lord Jesus in what He has done!' In the New Covenant, the only sin God is dealing with is the sin of unbelief in Jesus, John 16:8-11. This is the 'sin that so easily throws us off track' in Hebrews 12 because of the weights self righteous people try to put on us which is anything other than 'believing on Jesus in every area of our life.' The 'workers of iniquity/lawless & disobedient are not people who break the big 10 commandments but the wolves in sheep clothing, Matt.7:15 that are the 'many who say Lord Lord have we not....' the wolves in sheep clothing dont 'work/believe' on Jesus, they 'work on believing in themselves.' God can never say to those He has conceived/born again that He never knew them!We 'do the will of God' by believing on Jesus, we do the work of the devil by 'believing on our own obedience/works.'The Righteousness of Godhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03177730807129754572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10905506.post-68965852260257512222010-04-15T07:31:21.369-04:002010-04-15T07:31:21.369-04:00Thanks Righteousness! Glad you enjoyed it.
Hi Ba...Thanks Righteousness! Glad you enjoyed it.<br /><br />Hi Barb, nice to see you back. Great verse from Matthew reminding us that it doesn't matter how spiritual we look or act, or how many dead works we may perform, what counts is knowing Jesus the way Paul is describing in the passage I put up. <br /><br />Faith IS obedience. John 6:28-29<br /><br /> "Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" <br /><br /> Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." <br /> <br />Our 'work' is to believe and then we abide in Jesus, entering his rest. By entering his rest we declare that we believe what Jesus proclaimed from the Cross: IT IS FINISHED!!!!! We now have been crucified with Christ and he lives in us by his Spirit. And his Spirit produces in us every good fruit! But if we choose to live by our own efforts under the Law and allow our flesh to work hard we will produce all sorts of sin. <br />See Galatians 5:16-26<br /><br />"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. <br /><br />Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. <br /><br />But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."<br /><br /><br />Now I'm guessing that you can clearly see the warning here that "those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God". But can you clearly see that those who do these things are doing them because they are under law and not the Spirit? That they are putting their faith in their flesh, their human effort to work? This is the trap. <br /><br />The gospel is backwards from any worldly system or wisdom. It is not until we give up trying to be good and do good that we are free to be yielded to the Spirit who lives in us and learn to let Jesus be Jesus in us and through us. <br /><br />Ask a lifeguard whether they can easier save a drowning person who is struggling to survive on their own or who gives up the struggle to trust the lifeguard to save them. Many people drown not because there is no one to save them but because they won't trust the one who came to save them.<br /><br />Faith never leads to further dead works, and many have confused dead works with good works. Good works, or fruit, can only come through the Spirit of God at work in someone who has received the free gift of the righteousness of God by faith and has given up trying to do and be righteous by obedience. <br /><br />And true faith is never a saying, it is a doing. Believing is our work. (many grace people would not agree with me here!) It is our only work, and even our faith is a gift from God in that it is our response to a gospel which is so powerful it enables faith to rise up in us for salvation. <br /><br />But don't get me going on how amazing the gospel is, I could ramble on all day! <br /><br />I hope this helps explain what I believe better. Feel free to ask questions and challenge with Scripture. I've wrestled through most of the seemingly contradictory Scriptures throughout the process of coming in to more revelation of grace. Surprisingly, most are simple to understand once taken out of the context of bad teaching and put into its original context of the words before and after...julhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15688008902332240637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10905506.post-36219938280754660052010-04-14T23:16:45.198-04:002010-04-14T23:16:45.198-04:00Matthew 7:21..."Not everyone who says to Me, ...Matthew 7:21..."Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord. will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter."<br /><br /> The faith that says but does not do is really unbelief.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16016152648501568481noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10905506.post-80950143191595053612010-04-10T19:08:12.270-04:002010-04-10T19:08:12.270-04:00Beautifully put! I was sharing with my brother abo...Beautifully put! I was sharing with my brother about the passages in Phil.3 and said a picture is worth a thousand words & that I wanted to take some dung, put it in a picture frame with my name & Phil.3 next to it. He just shook his head like I was crazy. The point is, and I know you already know, is that most I have met do not count all their credentials, status & especially their obedience to the law for righteousness as dung. All I know is that if when I preach/teach this, if Im misunderstood and not invited back...WHO CARES! I want the world to know that Im in love with Jesus, not all of the religious trappings Paul listed as dung, manure, waste, trash. Way to go on this post Juls, way to go!The Righteousness of Godhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03177730807129754572noreply@blogger.com