John 20:21-23 I Also Send You

We know that Jesus forgave sins. We also know that only God can forgive sins. Yet, people believe that Jesus gave the apostles the authority to forgive sins in John 20:21-23. If true, does this mean the apostles were given the power of God? What does this say about the finished work of Christ? In this video, I will address how when we understand the grammar used in passage reveals both the truth about the forgiveness of sins and what authority Jesus gave the apostles and all Christians.

Resources: Sending the Disciples livinggodministries.net/living_god_ministries/radio_archive/audio_files/gospel_of_john_126_20_19_23_sending_the_disciples_ext.mp3

Colossians 1:25-27 God's Gift of Life

 ‭Colossians 1:25-27

[25] I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— [26] the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. [27] To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

What is the condition of man without Jesus Christ?

Does the death of Jesus Christ save us?

Resources:

Easter

https://96tolife.blogspot.com/search/label/Easter?m=1

Dead or Alive

https://www.livinggodministries.net/living_god_ministries/radio_archive/audio_files/ephesians_027_2_1_3_dead_or_alive.mp3

Restoring Our Relationship

On Resurrection Sunday, otherwise known as Easter, we celebrate our God and Savior Jesus Christ conquering the grave and rising from the dead. There are many meanings for the resurrection. It is proof of Jesus being God. The Lord conquering death is a promise to Christians that we will conquer death one day as well. The resurrection is God's offer to restore His life, the Holy Spirit, to all who accept Jesus Christ as their savior. However, one of the reasons for the resurrection that goes unnoticed is that it provides God with the opportunity to have a relationship with us. Christians like to use the phrase, "Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship." But, from my experience, the relationship often looks just like a religion. For example, do you know anybody who has said something like the following? "Jesus followers are to still be obedient to what is commanded in the New Testament." The statement alone is one of religion and not a relationship. Obedience to commands is the definition of religion. You do not need to know Jesus Christ to respond to commands. To live this way will do one thing for you. You will succeed in becoming just like the Jews. They deceived themselves into believing they were obedient to God and when the Lord showed up, they rejected Him. Are there any examples of God having a relationship with His people apart from obeying commands? 

Naming the Animals

After the Creation and before the Fall, we see an example of God and Adam engaged in a personal, interactive encounter with each other. In Genesis 2:19-20, we read, "Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky, and all the wild animals." Here we see a father and son naming the animals. God is allowing Adam to participate in the creation. Adam couldn't create the animals, but God allowed him to name them. Is that any different than a father and son going to the pet store and the father allowing his son to pick out and name the family pet? The child can't drive to the store and can't pay for the pet, but he can name it. God is no different in His interactions with us. God didn't know what Adam would name the animals just like a father may not know what name his son will give the family pet. This is an intimate and unforgettable moment in a relationship. 

Sharing His Plans

There is little else that displays a relationship between two people than for one to share their plans with the other. Later in Genesis, we see the Lord interacting with Abraham on His way to Sodom. "When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him (Genesis 18:16-18)." Who do you tell your plans to? It is usually someone close to you. Someone you can trust. A person you love. Here we see God entrusting Abraham with His plans to investigate the sins of Sodom. God did not have to tell Abraham, but He chose to let Him in on what He and the angels were going to do. If you keep reading, this leads to Abraham pleading for God to spare Sodom and God listened. How many times have you and a friend talked about your plans and hashed it out? We see that God is not all that different. 

Think Before You Act

There is always that time in our life when we do things in haste in response to our emotions. It could be as minor as an impulse purchase in the store checkout line all the way to acting out violently against someone who has hurt us. In the book of Exodus, we see what can only be described as Moses getting God to think twice about destroying the nation of Israel. Exodus 32:10-14 says, "Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened." In short, Moses was successful at getting God to change His mind and not destroy the nation of Israel for making the golden calf. This is an example of how the respect and love one has for another leads to you taking their advice and thinking things through before you act. 

Fish Fry

Who doesn't like to share a meal with their friends? How much of our interactions with friends and family revolve around sharing a meal? If there is a major event to celebrate, there will be a feast involved. Holidays, sporting events, life events, and so on, include food as part of the celebration. In John 21, Jesus had just finished helping the disciples catch some fish. The Lord, intending to reinstate Peter after his denial, prepared a meal for the disciples. "Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish (John 21:10-13)." I wonder what it must have been like to have God cook you breakfast after helping you haul in a bunch of fish? Does it get any more personal than this in a relationship? Having someone prepare a hot meal for you after a long night's work is the epitome of a loving relationship. 

In all of these examples, the underlying theme is love. God is not blessing them for obedience to some command they obeyed. He didn't curse the disciples for not catching any fish. He made them breakfast. The Lord, effectively, said to Moses, "Yes, on second thought, you are correct. I won't destroy My people." He listened to wise counsel. God sat down for a meal with Abraham and then shared His plans with Him. He didn't have to do that but did so because He loved Abraham. It is love that leads to a father and son sharing a moment to name the pets, in this case, the animals of the world. This is what God wants with all of us through faith in Jesus Christ. He forgave our sins and blessed us with Himself, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, so we can have an eternal relationship with Him. When we don't understand this truth, we are left to believe our relationship is based on our church attendance, giving record, battling with sin, our ministry success, and whatever else we feel God commands. That is not living. If that is what God wanted He could have just left us under the Old Covenant and we could proverbially set up camp at the foot of Mount Sanai. But, God has gone from the mountaintop to the cross, through the empty tomb, and into our hearts. Believe this and get to know your God. 

Simon Says

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand." John 10:27-28

Simon Says is a "children's game for three or more players. One player takes the role of "Simon" and issues instructions (usually physical actions such as "jump in the air" or "stick out your tongue") to the other players, which should be followed only when prefaced with the phrase "Simon says.""Anyone who played this game as a child got a lot of enjoyment from it. The key to succeeding in the game was trying not to react to hearing the command apart from it being prefaced with "Simon says." It is kind of like when responding to the call of your parents. If they summoned you by your first name, you were slow in responding. However, if their tone changed and they summoned you by your full name, you knew it was as if they had said "Simon Says" and you should respond immediately or face the consequences. However, when it comes to our relationship with Jesus Christ, hearing the voice of the Lord can be more challenging to discern. When you combine trying to hear the "still small voice (1 Kings 19:12)" of the Lord with the distractions from the world and the deceptive influences of the devil, it can be next to impossible to be certain who it is trying to speak to you, if anyone at all. There are Christians who say, "Sometimes I go a stretch of time without talking to Him. Maybe I do and don't realize it." Others, like myself, wonder if those things we would describe as gut feelings or passing thoughts are God trying to talk to us, but we just dismiss them as being byproducts of our chaotic mind. The difficult part is avoiding comparisons of our interactions, or lack thereof, with God to those we see in scripture. We can look at scripture and think that God was talking to people as often as we carry on text conversations with people on our smartphones. We see Moses up on Mount Sinai for weeks talking to God and can be jealous of all the time He spent with the Lord. Although we don't want God to allow the devil to pick on us like He did with Job, we can be envious of God taking time to talk with him for as long as He did. Then there is the case of Paul on the road to Damascus where Jesus Christ directly confronted him and changed the course of his life. When compared to our own lives we look at experiences like this and say to ourselves, "I just want to know you're there, God." It doesn't have to be earth-shattering or life-changing, just an acknowledgment that He is with us.

Jesus said that His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. One reason we may not believe we hear His voice is that we forget that He dwells within us. We can read scripture and get the impression that God is always speaking to us from far away; outside our bodies. We think that He is sitting up in Heaven looking down on us, floating around in a cloud we cannot approach, or living inside a temple or church somewhere that only specially chosen people are allowed to enter. Perhaps this is why we don't recognize His voice when He speaks to us. The Lord said, "I still have much to tell you, but you cannot yet bear to hear it. However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth (John 16:12-13)." When we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is more than our acknowledgment that He conquered death, fulfilled prophecy or proved His deity. It was the moment that true salvation was offered to mankind. When Jesus rose from the dead it was the last step required before God would restore His life to mankind through the giving of the Holy Spirit. Now, through faith in Jesus Christ, we have the life of God indwelling us for eternity. This is the same life that God gave to Adam during creation which made him a living being. It is the same life that Jesus promised would lead us into all truth. It is the same life given as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come for us in eternity. My prayer is that when you begin to understand this truth, you will start to be able to discern when God is talking to you. Maybe now you will realize that you have something better than Moses and Job had. They didn't have the indwelling Holy Spirit. You have something better than Adam had in the Garden. The Holy Spirit will never leave you when you sin like He did when Adam sinned. Albeit, for a brief moment, you won't need Jesus to appear to you in a blinding light to get your attention like He did with Paul. This doesn't make you better than Paul, any of the Old Testament saints or any Christian you can think of as if they should be envious of you. This just means that as one of the Lord's sheep and He as your shepherd, you now have His life indwelling you. You are now able to hear His voice as He speaks to you through the Spirit or reveals His truth by teaching you His word. Do not be discouraged if you do not feel God has spoken to you. Rather, be encouraged that you care enough to want to hear from Him. When the time comes He will speak to you. How much and to what extent is between Himself and you. You will hear His voice and in the meantime, remember that you have eternal life, shall never perish, and that nothing, including your sins, can snatch you from His hand. Happy Easter.

Your Faith Is Not Futile

"For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.  If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." 1 Corinthians 15:16-19

Although it will happen to all of us one day, dying is something we try not to think about, even though it is around us all the time. That is why for Christians, it is easy to look at the death of Jesus Christ and be in awe. Most of us don't like to think of dying. We may consider dying for a loved one if we believe it is absolutely necessary, but for the entire world? Not a chance. That is why all we can do is look at what Jesus did and say, "Thank you." What is even more sobering to think about is the fact that Jesus died for us when He didn't have to. We are the ones that deserve death. We are the ones who, in Adam, didn't believe God and ushered in the sin and death we struggle with today. But, the most humbling aspect of it all is that while we deserve death for our sin, we don't even have a life to give that would satisfy God. Sin is so terrible that it required the death of God as payment! Yet, for most of us, we still try to appease God; not believing the death of Jesus was once and for all. Because we don't believe Jesus when He said, "It is finished (John 19:30)," we come up with our own bloodless sacrifices that God doesn't require and does not accept; confession booths, short accounts, altar calls, repetitive prayers, etc. Even the Jews, who do not believe in Jesus, much less His sacrifice for their sins, have initiated plans to rebuild the Temple in Israel so they can once again perform sacrifices for their sins. It would not surprise me to see Christians flock to Israel to try and take part in these ceremonies and even give financial support to the building and maintaining of the Temple. Despite what Jesus said on the cross with His last breath, despite the Bible saying that God no longer remembers our sins and lawless acts (Hebrews 10:17), despite our being told that sacrifice for sins is no longer necessary (Hebrews 10:18), and despite scripture saying that the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins (Hebrews 10:4), we still put Jesus back on the cross to die all over again because we don't believe He did enough. When I was younger and before I came to a saving faith in Jesus Christ, I was given a prayer to recite each time I asked God to forgive my sins. It was called an "Act of Contrition." The prayer went as follows: "My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you whom I should love above all things. I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin. Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered and died for us. In his name, my God, have mercy." God, in His love, listened to me say this prayer repeatedly, but I can't help but wonder if when He heard it, His heart broke and made Him want to shout, "I already forgave you!" With so much focus on sin, is it any wonder that most of us don't grasp the true meaning of the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

All believers acknowledge the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Believers in Jesus Christ will experience resurrection because, having the life Jesus gives, it is impossible for death to defeat us. We know that when we die we will go be with God for eternity. However, it is incomplete and worse, it misses the main point about the resurrection. The death of Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation. However, the death of Jesus Christ does not save anybody. We are told that without the resurrection we are to be pitied and are still in our sins. Why? The main problem between man and God is not that we are sinners in need of forgiveness. The problem is that we are spiritually dead to God and in need of His life. Salvation is the restoration of the life of God. In Genesis 2:7, it says, "Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." When God created Adam, He breathed His life into him and Adam became a living being. However, in Genesis 2:17, God warned Adam that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would die; "..but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." Adam didn't believe God and ate from the tree. When Adam sinned, he didn't die physically. That would come later as a separate consequence of his sin. We know that because he lived to be 930 years old. What happened immediately is that Adam died spiritually; God removed His life, the Holy Spirit, from within him. Adam was created in the image of God; a reflection of what it is like to have the life of God indwelling him. But Adam did not have any children with Eve prior to his sin. Therefore, all of mankind is born into this world in the image of Adam; a reflection of what it is like not to have the life of God indwelling us. Genesis 5:3 says, "When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth." God, in His love, desired to once again indwell mankind. However, before He could do that, He had to deal with the sin that caused His life to leave Adam. Jesus Christ, being born spiritually alive, is the only man ever born who had a life to give that would satisfy God as payment for our sins. Now, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God is able to offer His life to mankind. "For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life (Romans 5;10)!" And because of the eternal consequences of the cross, there is now no sin that will cause that life to leave. That is why it is called an eternal life. A life that will carry a believer through this life and on into eternity. Hebrews 9:12 says, "He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption." The Gospel is sin, death, forgiveness and the restoration of life. This Easter we celebrate the moment when Jesus Christ rose from the dead to offer the life of God as a free gift to all who will receive Him by faith. Let us not forget the importance of the empty tomb because we are stuck at the foot of the cross. Happy Easter!

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

"Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures..." 1 Corinthians 15:1-4

Easter, or Resurrection Day as many Christians refer to it, marks the culmination of what many call Holy Week. Holy Week celebrates the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and goes all the way through His death (Good Friday), burial and resurrection (Easter). All Christians are well aware of the meaning behind the death of Jesus Christ; that His death took away the sins of the world. But, what is the meaning of the Resurrection? To many, the Resurrection of Jesus has several meanings. A Christian website gives the most popular meanings. One, "it witnesses to the immense power of God Himself" and "His ability to raise the dead." Secondly, "the resurrection of Jesus is a testimony to the resurrection of human beings, which is a basic tenet of the Christian faith. Unlike all other religions, Christianity alone possesses a founder who transcends death and who promises that His followers will do the same." Lastly, the "Word of God guarantees the believer's resurrection at the coming of Jesus Christ for His Body (the Church)..." I agree with all these meanings. Yet, while true, there is something missing, something unintentionally left out, but is the most important meaning behind the Resurrection. When you read these meanings there is the impression given that the Resurrection has little meaning for a believer on this side of eternity. It is as if we accept Jesus Christ and then we gut it out somehow for the rest of our lives until we die or Jesus returns; whichever comes first. One is left asking, "Does the Resurrection have any meaning to a Christian from the time of salvation until our physical lives end?" Thankfully, the answer is, "Yes." The meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ that is left out is that His Resurrection is salvation itself!

In Romans 5:10, the Bible says, "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." We shall be "saved by His life." The problem that separates mankind from God is not that we are sinners in need of forgiveness. The problem is that we are spiritually dead to God and in need of His life. The Gospel is sin, death, forgiveness and life. In Genesis 2:7, we read that, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." The "breath of life" breathed into Adam, which made him a living being, is the Holy Spirit of God. When Adam sinned, God removed His life and Adam died spiritually. He was physically alive, but spiritually dead. All of mankind is born, according to Genesis 5:3, in Adam's "likeness, after his image..." Therefore, God, in His love and desire to restore His life to mankind had to first deal with the sins that resulted from Adam's unbelief. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, was the only man born with a life to give that would satisfy the penalty for sin. Thus, raised from the dead Jesus could offer the life of God lost in Adam as a free gift to all who accept Him by faith. And because of the death of Jesus Christ there is now no sin that can cause the life of God to ever leave us again. It is an eternal life that carries us through this life, past death and into eternity. If you are born again of the Spirit of God through faith in Jesus Christ, you have the life of God restored to you. He now indwells you and desires to guide you as you learn to rest in His finished work and depend on Him as the only source for unconditional love, total acceptance, meaning and purpose to life. It is the restoration of the life of God through faith in Jesus Christ that saves us from being eternally separated from God. That is the meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and why we celebrate. Happy Easter.