Monday, July 28, 2014

He Is Greater

And greater is the One living inside of me than he who is living in the world.



Mercy Me - Greater

Bring your tired
Bring your shame
Bring your guilt
Bring your pain
Don’t you know that’s not you’re name
You will always be much more to me

Every day I wrestle with the voices
That keep telling me I’m not right
But that’s alright

‘Cause I hear a voice and He calls me redeemed
When others say I’ll never be enough
And greater is the One living inside of me
Than he who is living in the world
In the world
In the world
And greater is the One living inside of me
Than he who is living in the world

Bring your doubts
Bring your fears
Bring your hurt
Bring your tears
There’ll be no condemnation here
You are holy, righteous and redeemed

Every time I fall
There’ll be those who will call me
A mistake
Well that’s ok

There’ll be days I lose the battle
Grace says that it doesn’t matter
‘Cause the cross already won the war
He’s Greater
He’s Greater

I am learning to run freely
Understanding just how He sees me
And it makes me love Him more and more
He’s Greater
He’s Greater

1 John 5:4-5  For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.  5 And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

Satan hates you and wants to kill you. If he can't take your life then he definitely wants to take the life out of you. He loves to make you feel shame and guilt, he wants to defeat you and make you cry, he wants to hear you curse God.

You may wonder why, what in the world did I do to have somebody hate me so bad? You didn't have to do anything. The main reason that Satan hates you is because he hates God and you are the greatest part of God's creation made in his image.

The Lord loves his children and he has plans for us, he has called us to do great things for him and he gives us the strength and courage to do them. God's children have the ultimate source of hope despite our circumstances we know the ultimate victory belongs to our Father.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Also Known As God

If he wasn't God on earth then why is the world still talking about him?



John 1:1-5  In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He existed in the beginning with God.  God created everything through Him, and nothing was created except through Him.

The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

This is a different genealogy from what you see at the beginning of Matthew and Luke’s gospels, they both show us the human genealogy of Jesus, but John goes way back beyond the humanness of Jesus and he points out the fact that Jesus is God and since He is then He always existed with God.

The four books of the Bible that tell us about Jesus time on earth are written to different audiences and therefore they give us a different perspective on who Jesus is. Matthew shows us Jesus as the Messiah and King of Israel, in Mark there isn’t a genealogy because Christ is presented as a Lowly Servant which wouldn’t have His lineage tracked, in Luke He is the Son of Man rejected by Israel. John the apostle and author of this book wants us to know that Jesus is the Son of God.

Jesus Christ is nothing less that God in a body, He isn’t some mystic, divine being up in heaven somewhere and He isn’t an angel that got a promotion. Jesus was there with God in the beginning when God decided to create, Jesus was there when God gave physical life to this world and now he has come to earth to give us spiritual life.

It is amazing that the world is still talking about this man. Every other great man in history combined doesn’t get the amount of attention that Jesus gets.
"The philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who together are said to have formed the philosophical foundation of Western culture. And yet, despite being in the public eye for only three and a half years, Jesus and His teachings have arguably impacted the world far more than the collective erudition of these three great philosophers whose combined careers totaled more than 150 years."

“Jesus: Why The World Is Still fascinated With Him” -Tim LaHaye
There are people who love Him and swear that He is who He claimed to be and there are others that will bend over backwards to distort the truth. There are plenty of religions in the world today that blaspheme against Jesus saying He was not God, some religions even go as far as to claim that Jesus didn’t even claim to be God.
1 John 2:22-23 And who is a liar? Anyone who says that Jesus is not the Christ. Anyone who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist. 23 Anyone who denies the Son doesn't have the Father, either. But anyone who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
There are plenty of religions in the world today that blaspheme against Jesus saying he was not God, they say that he was an angel that was given some deity, some say he is just one of many sons of God, or he is just a good man that God exalted at Jesus baptism. Some religions say that Jesus didn't claim to be God. It is blasphemous to say that he is a prophet of Islam, or claim that he is one of many sons that God created or that he was good enough to be elevated to become a god.
1 John 1:1-2 We proclaim to you the One who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw Him with our own eyes and touched Him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. 2  This One who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen Him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that He is the One who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then He was revealed to us.
John, who was probably Jesus closest friend, gave us his testimony about Jesus, John wants you to know what he saw and heard and why his life was so radically changed. His experiences with Jesus are very important to him and he wants us to know Jesus the way that he did after spending three years with him. John heard the claims by Jesus, he saw the proof in how He lived, and the things that He did, it all made sense to him that Jesus really was God and our Savior.

Jesus referred to himself as:


✔  the bread of life, (John 6:35-51)
✔  the light of the world, (John 8:12)
✔  the door, (John 10:7-9)
✔  the good shepherd, (John 10:11-14)
✔  the resurrection and the life, (John 11:25)
✔  the way the truth and the life, (John 14:6)
✔  the true vine (John 15:1-5)

Jesus question is for all of us

Luke 9:20  Then He asked them, "But who do you say I am?" Peter replied, "You are the Messiah sent from God!"
Is He a radical thirty year old carpenter that left the family business and got Himself killed for no reason? Did He fake the fulfillment of prophecy? Could a man possibly be born in the right circumstances in order to fulfill hundreds of prophecies in order to trick us? How could His miracles have tricked so many? If He is just a liar then why is the world still so obsessed over one liar?

If Jesus is really the only son of God, fully God revealed to us in a body, then the question that Jesus asked Peter is the most important one that we need to answer as well. “But who do you say I am?”

What if He really is who he claimed to be? If He told us the truth about being God then everything else that He said should be extremely important to us as well. We should be digging into God’s to find out what He wants us to know and what He wants us to do.

Monday, July 14, 2014

God's Children Defeat This Evil World

We have what it takes to be victorious.


1 John 5:4-5, 12-13, 18-20  For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.  And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

12  Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God's Son does not have life.  13  I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life.

18  We know that God's children do not make a practice of sinning, for God's Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot touch them.  19  We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one.   

20  And we know that the Son of God has come, and He has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and He is eternal life.

An athlete is very focused on his goal and he works to achieve it everyday but he still knows that when he competes against other people with the same goal there is a chance that he isn't going to be victorious. He knows that in the world of sports there can only be one winner.

Unlike the athlete God's children don't have to worry about defeat and we know that Jesus victory makes all of his children winners. We all come in first place!

If you are living for God and pleasing him with your lifestyle then you are probably very aware that there is a battle going on in this world. The more you try and live right the more weird you will look to the rest of the world and the more Satan and his children will attack you.

The world doesn't like weird, it doesn't like what it can't understand, the world sees our peculiar lifestyle and makes fun of us or tempts us to live just like everybody else.The world likes everybody going the same direction and eliminating our differences. The problem is that the children of God are so different that it is difficult to ignore.
Jesus Christ’s victory is effective:
Over temptation - Hebrews 4:15
Over sin - Romans 5:20-21
Over Satan - John 12:31
Over evil spirits - Mark 1:23-27
Over all powers - Colossians 2:15
Over the world - John 16:33
Over death - Romans 6:9
We don't coexist very well when we claim that we are going to be with God for eternity and nobody else is. We don't coexist well when we claim that nobody else is pleasing God, that they are following Satan, living in sin, and the list goes on.

We have to know that it isn't possible to have vanity and selflessness, materialism and generosity or anger and grace living in harmony with each other. The opposite ends of the pendulum are not likely to get along.

John tells us that God's children are victorious over this evil world. We have victory over temptation and sin, over Satan and his demons and we conquer death all because of our faith in Jesus. (Revelation 12:11, Revelation 13:7,1 Corinthians 15:54-57)

Habitual sin is a state of defeat that we don't have to live with, we will blow it from time to time and Satan is happy to use that to accuse us but the ultimate victory has already been determined for God's children. (Romans 8:37)
God's People Are Winners
Daniel 7:27 Then the sovereignty, power, and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be given to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will last forever, and all rulers will serve and obey him.
Through Jesus we have the victory over Satan, over death and over this evil world, just the same as Christ overcame all of the of the forces of evil that were arrayed against him. Satan lost the battle! Jesus victory redefines everything!

I need to remember that believers are able to share in the victory that Jesus won for us through our faith. I will get to experience eternal life in God's presence in the perfect place that he is preparing for me.