Episodes
Monday Feb 01, 2016
WE HAVE AN EXPECTANT HOPE (1 Peter 1:3a)
Monday Feb 01, 2016
Monday Feb 01, 2016
What do you worry about most when you face a difficult hardship?
Being physically harmed? Ridiculed? The loss of a job and the financial problems that follow? The loss of your health? The loss of a loved one? Loneliness? Your own death?
The word hope is commonly defined as a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. We say things like “I hope we have something good to eat tonight,” or “I hope my boss is in a good mood today.” Hope is always looking forward and it is important to have hope, or a positive outlook on life, to hope that better things are coming our way. To not have any hope during difficult times can make recovering that much more difficult or even impossible.
The amount of hope a person has is often based on those people around them who can help them, to provide comfort, and assistance. When you are alone, without help, it is hard to find hope. Our hope is also based on the certainty, or uncertainty, of the future we see for ourselves. When good things are coming in our lives it is easy to have hope. It gets much more difficult when we see nothing but dark clouds or hardship in front of us. This is the way the world generally thinks of the world hope. It is a wishful desire for better things to come.
How does the meaning of the word hope change when you become a believer in Jesus Christ? Instead of simply having a wish or desire for a certain thing to happen, the word hope means certainty for a believer in Jesus Christ. A believer never has to worry about who will be around to provide support, for they have the certainty of the Holy Spirit living within their heart to provide strength, wisdom, power, and comfort. This is not just a feeling, but an absolute certainty of His presence and power in their lives.
The believer also knows with total certainty that there is eternal life in heaven that follows this temporary life on earth. Imagine the hope that comes from knowing without a doubt that you will have endless thousands upon thousands of years of living without old age, hunger, persecution, disease, or death. A believer knows that heaven is real and, therefore, hell is real, but this is not a concern to the believer, for they have absolute certainty that living in heaven with Jesus Christ is their next destination.
A born again, child of God, a true believer in Jesus Christ, who has Jesus Christ as their Lord and Master, looks at difficult times with an expectant hope. The word expectant means that they are eager for the future to come, and they are excited about what is coming. They can be expectant because they have absolute certainty in the promises that God has provided for them.
They can easily ask themselves, how can I fail to overcome the problems of this world with the power of the Holy Spirit of Christ in my heart. How can death harm me, if I know what is going to happen next? Death is nothing more than a weigh station to eternity.
In his final words to Timothy, Paul expressed this expectant hope eloquently.
2 Tim 4:6-8
6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
KJV
There was no doubt in Paul’s mind what laid beyond the grave. He was absolutely certain of his eternity with Jesus. He knew that Jesus would be waiting for him, ready to say, welcome home thou good and faithful servant. This is the expectant hope of the believer. Listen to this podcast to learn how you can have an expectant hope.
Friday Mar 27, 2015
HOW SECURE IS THE BELIEVER? (Romans 8:31-39)
Friday Mar 27, 2015
Friday Mar 27, 2015
What is the security of your faith based on?
Is it how much good you will do versus how much bad you will do? If this is what your faith is secured by, then you have already failed, for no man can be good enough to meet the perfect and righteous demands of God.
Is it how faithful you are to your church or religion? If this is what your faith is secured by, then your faith is in your religion and not God. A faith based on anything but God will fail because God will accept man on one basis only, faith based on the completed work of Jesus Christ which provides for our salvation.
Is it based on your performance of certain religious rituals? If this is what your faith is secured by, then your faith is based on the works of man, and nothing that man can do is sufficient to meet the demands of God.
For the true believer in Jesus Christ, our faith is based on the power, the complete sovereignty, and the grace of God.
Paul says:
Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
KJV
The closing verses of this magnificent chapter of comfort for the believer explores all of the possible ways that man can think of to try and mess up our salvation and separate us from the love of God. In our lesson today, Paul refutes each one of them and states that they are blocked by the grace of God.
Once you have made Jesus Christ your Lord, then nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate you from the love of God. Your faith secure because your faith is in God.
Friday Mar 06, 2015
TO BE A CHILD OF GOD (Romans 8:15-22)
Friday Mar 06, 2015
Friday Mar 06, 2015
When I think of the dreams of a child that lives in an orphanage, I think of the loneliness they must feel because they are alone in this world without parents to care for them. They don’t understand why they don’t have parents. They just know that they are different from other kids. They see other children with their families and they want to be like them. They want what they have. They want a close personal relationship with their parents. They want to be able to call someone Daddy, or Father. They want to feel secure in the arms of a father who will protect them and love them. They want to feel confident as they face the world because they have parents who will support them.
These same feelings exist within many people who are not a born again, regenerated, adopted child of God. They look at a true Christian and they notice a difference in them. They don’t know what it is, but they see the Christian handle the problems and trials in their lives in a more confident way. So the non-believer will ask the Christian how they can face trouble with more confidence, and their reply is that it’s because they are a member of the family of God. They have a close personal relationship with God. They have the authority to call our heavenly Father, Abba, Father. The word Abba is an Aramaic word that is the equivalent of the English word Daddy, or Papa. It speaks of the close emotional relationship that a believer has with God. They know that God loves them and will provide for them. They feel secure in the arms of the almighty God. This is their confidence. This is how they face adversity in their lives.
If you are looking for a close personal relationship with God, then listen to this podcast to learn what it means to be a true child of God.
Friday Feb 27, 2015
TO KNOW THAT YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD (Romans 8:9-14)
Friday Feb 27, 2015
Friday Feb 27, 2015
Are you a born again, regenerated, adopted child of God?
Romans 8:9
9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
KJV
That is the real test. Paul states very clearly if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. The true mark of a born again believer and a genuine Christian is that he is indwelt by the Spirit of God. A believer is a new creation. Paul is telling us that if you are truly saved you will answer yes to these questions. Do you love God? Do you want to serve Him? Are these things uppermost in your mind and heart?
If you are a true believer then you will have the indwelling Spirit of God empowering you to want the things of God. A believer has been granted a new law which liberates him from sin. He has been granted a new Lord who is none other than the third Person of the Triune Godhead.
It is a basic truth of the gospel that a person must be born again before he can be viewed as a child of God.
John 1:11-13
11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
KJV
Paul tells us that it is the Holy Spirit that places the believer as an adult son, with all of the privileges of an adult son, into the family of God.
Romans 8:14
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
KJV
One evidence of the believer’s sonship in the divine family of God is the cooperation of the believer with the guiding and leading ministry of the Spirit of God. Those that are led by God’s Spirit are the sons of God. The phrase, sons of God, appears in the New Testament as a name for people who are in a covenant relationship with God. The process is described as one of adoption, by which the believer becomes a child of God, and thus an heir of God, a joint-heir with Christ. Listen to this podcast to learn what it means to know that you are a child of God.
Friday Nov 28, 2014
GOD'S GIFT AND GOD'S GRACE (Romans 5:16-21)
Friday Nov 28, 2014
Friday Nov 28, 2014
Each day that I live I am grateful for the gift of God and the grace of God. It is by the gift of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, that I can have eternal life in Heaven, and it is the grace of God that makes it all possible.
Nothing can stand in the way of God’s grace. It is absolutely sovereign. Eternal life through Jesus Christ is assured. God’s abundant grace will reign through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, for all who believe on Him, unto everlasting life. That is our security as a believer. It was God’s gift and God’s grace that allowed us to have salvation, and nothing can stand in the way of God’s grace. Absolutely nothing. We are secure in God’s grace.
This whole concept of sin and death, and of God’s gift and grace, is so amazing that it is hard to believe. Yet, it is also so simple and direct that it truly brings out the divine nature of God, His omniscience and omnipotence, and most of all His love for each of us. His desire that none should perish but that all should have everlasting life is one of the great promises of the Bible. I know that God loves me because the Bible has told me so.
On this week of thanksgiving, I praise God that:
John 3:16-18
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
KJV
Friday Nov 07, 2014
HOW SECURE IS GOD'S LOVE? (Romans 5:6-11)
Friday Nov 07, 2014
Friday Nov 07, 2014
We live in a society where everything changes, where nothing is permanent. A majority of people in our state can define marriage as being between one man and one woman, and yet a set of activist judges, with no regard for the constitution of the U.S., can overrule the will of the people.
We can live in this nation for hundreds of years with clearly defined morals about what is right and wrong based on the absolute truths established by God, and then suddenly anything that God says must be disregarded. Where man is involved, everything changes, nothing is secure.
So it is easy to understand why people have a hard time accepting God’s gift of salvation as permanent. Surely there must be things that we can do to take that salvation away, or perhaps God will change His mind as He looks at the depravity of man in our current world.
This is the way man acts, right? Our love towards others is generally dictated by how that other person treats us. It is easy to love someone who loves us back. It is much harder to love someone who intentionally harms us. So this is man’s concept of love, do unto others as they have done unto me.
However, God’s concept of love is very different from ours. In our lesson today, Paul will tell us that God loves even the ungodly. He loves us even if we have rejected Him. He loves us even if we have done things that He has established as evil and wrong. God loves us in spite of what we do, say, or even if we do not love Him back. Paul will go on to say that it is because God’s love for us does not change that our salvation, once accepted, is unchangeable. Once we have become a reborn, sanctified, justified, and adopted child of God, we cannot be unborn, nor can our adoption to the family of God be revoked. Once we are in the hand of our Lord, nothing can remove us. Our salvation is secure, because God’s love for us is secure.
It is the love of God that guarantees our eternal security. That same love that planned our redemption at the foundation of the universe, that sent His own beloved Son to die on a cross, will be the same love that will fling wide open the gates of glory to welcome us home.
Version: 20240320