Ephesians 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Now let's carefully examine our next verse in Ephesians chapter 1. This verse says, According as he (God the Father) hath chosen us (saints, believers) in him (Jesus Christ) before the foundation of the world, that we (saints, believers) should be holy and without blame before him (God the Father) in love: (sanctification as saints.) So what is this verse saying? It is saying that before the foundation of the world God chose to sanctify His saints; those who believe on Jesus Christ. Notice what this verse is not saying. It is not saying that God picked certain people before the foundation of the world to save them. Some like to interpret this verse like this: According as he hath chosen (to put) us in him before the foundation of the world...that's not what it says, so don't add to scripture!! This verse is simply saying that before the foundation of the world God chose to set apart ALL believers as saints. That's it. God did NOT elect certain people to be saints, but rather God simply sets apart those who in their own free will believe on Jesus, to be His saints. Before the foundation of the world, this is called foreknowledge, God already knew who would be in Him (Christ) and chose to sanctify or set apart all those who are in Him (Jesus.) Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ puts you in Him and then God does the making of you into a saint. God gives man the free will to choose to believe and in return God makes those who believe, saints by sanctification. God never forces anyone to believe. God does NOT predestine people to believe. God does NOT predestine some to heaven and thereby send others to hell. God does however, predestine to make saints out of believers, but God does NOT elect certain people and pre-program them to believe. Calvinism and Sovereign Grace are false teachings! You were not chosen before the foundation of the world to be a believer. YOU decided whether or not to believe! God chose to save those who would believe. It is God's foreknowledge that tells Him who will believe and thus God elected or chose you as a believer in Christ to be sanctified. Divine Election is only possible through sanctification of the Spirit and only those who believe can be sanctified. Notice what 1 Peter 1:2 says, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied." This verse is teaching that through the blood of Jesus Christ we are saved and then sanctified by the Holy Spirit. God elected us through sanctification of the Spirit, which He had prior knowledge of before we ever were cleansed by the blood of Christ. Much more will be said about the proper view of predestination and the false teachings of Calvinism. Let me just warn you to be aware of this Calvinistic false teaching that hides behind the label Sovereign Grace! God does not make anyone believe or not believe in Christ. God's Divine Election is only for those who have already believed.
Friday, April 26, 2019
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Heavenly Blessings
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
When Paul addresses these "Faithful Saints," he reminds them of the special blessings they have due to their testimony of being a saint who is faithful. Our faithfulness to the Lord brings about many blessings in our lives. Notice Proverbs 28:20 which says, "A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." God rewards our faithfulness with spiritual blessings that can only come from Him above, in heavenly places. As a saint we have the blessings of being saved, sealed and secure. God looks at us and see's the righteousness of Christ and He has given us the Holy Spirit as our seal and has promised to keep us saved. Psalm 97:10 says, "he preserveth the souls of his saints;" thank God for eternal security. True spiritual blessings come from just being saved. We are seated in the heavens as a result of being in Christ and get to enjoy all the spiritual blessings that accompany salvation. The joy, the peace, the power, the victory and on and on we could go with the benefits of such great a salvation! However, in addition to the blessings that come with salvation, we find in Psalm 68:19 "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah." Every day our great God dumps out a truck load of benefits from heaven upon His saints. These blessings from Heaven and the eternal blessings of the Spirit make for a truly blessed life. We use to have a couple who attended our church that wore t-shirts that said, "To blessed to be stressed!" I like that. As we deal with the stressful events in life, the blessings of God overshadow them all. As faithful saints who tithe we have a promise that we can count on, for Malachi 3:10 says, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." The Christian who is faithful to church gets a blessing! The Christian who is faithful to tithe gets a blessing! The Christian who reads the Word of God gets a blessing! Revelation 1:3 says, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand." What a great, generous and magnificent God we serve! It's time that we count our blessings one by one and we will surely see that our God has sent some Heavenly Blessings our way! Amen. God is good!
When Paul addresses these "Faithful Saints," he reminds them of the special blessings they have due to their testimony of being a saint who is faithful. Our faithfulness to the Lord brings about many blessings in our lives. Notice Proverbs 28:20 which says, "A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." God rewards our faithfulness with spiritual blessings that can only come from Him above, in heavenly places. As a saint we have the blessings of being saved, sealed and secure. God looks at us and see's the righteousness of Christ and He has given us the Holy Spirit as our seal and has promised to keep us saved. Psalm 97:10 says, "he preserveth the souls of his saints;" thank God for eternal security. True spiritual blessings come from just being saved. We are seated in the heavens as a result of being in Christ and get to enjoy all the spiritual blessings that accompany salvation. The joy, the peace, the power, the victory and on and on we could go with the benefits of such great a salvation! However, in addition to the blessings that come with salvation, we find in Psalm 68:19 "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah." Every day our great God dumps out a truck load of benefits from heaven upon His saints. These blessings from Heaven and the eternal blessings of the Spirit make for a truly blessed life. We use to have a couple who attended our church that wore t-shirts that said, "To blessed to be stressed!" I like that. As we deal with the stressful events in life, the blessings of God overshadow them all. As faithful saints who tithe we have a promise that we can count on, for Malachi 3:10 says, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." The Christian who is faithful to church gets a blessing! The Christian who is faithful to tithe gets a blessing! The Christian who reads the Word of God gets a blessing! Revelation 1:3 says, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand." What a great, generous and magnificent God we serve! It's time that we count our blessings one by one and we will surely see that our God has sent some Heavenly Blessings our way! Amen. God is good!
Friday, April 12, 2019
The Faithful Saints
Ephesians 1:1,2 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul when writing to the church of Ephesus called the born again believers in that church "the saints." There has been confusion over the term "saint" over the years, primarily because of the false teachings of the Catholic church. If you ask someone to name a saint, they tend to think in terms of a select few devout figures in the history of Christianity. However, when the Apostle Paul addresses the members of the church of Ephesus, he calls ALL believers "saints." The moment a person is born again his title is changed from Mr. Sinner to Mr. Saint. When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church he said in verse 2 of chapter 1, "Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours::" The simple truth regarding who a saint is found in the operation of initial sanctification. When you were saved God sanctified or set you apart from being a sinner to being a saint. Paul continues in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." When you were saved, you were washed, sanctified and now are no longer view in God's eyes as a sinner condemned, but rather a saint sanctified. When God's children assemble together at church it truly is when the saints come marching in. In addition to addressing the Ephesian congregation as saints, Paul complements them for their faithfulness: "and to the faithful in Christ Jesus." The church of Ephesus was made up of "faithful saints!" This is what we need today. We need church members (saints) who are faithful to ALL the services of the church. We need church members who are faithful to read their Bible. We need church members who are faithful to praying, witnessing and tithing, The greatest ability is dependability, but most church members you can no longer depend upon. If God's saints that have been saved by the blood of Christ would just be faithful to the mission of the local church then we would see a great move of God in our churches. Faithfulness is not dependent upon whether it's convenient! True faithfulness is when something else interferes with your obligations to the Lord and yet you still choose the Lord. That's being faithful. Hebrews 10:25 says, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." It's getting late! The return of Christ is near so get to church! Let's be faithful! Our churches need "The Faithful Saints" to stand up and come marching in!
The Apostle Paul when writing to the church of Ephesus called the born again believers in that church "the saints." There has been confusion over the term "saint" over the years, primarily because of the false teachings of the Catholic church. If you ask someone to name a saint, they tend to think in terms of a select few devout figures in the history of Christianity. However, when the Apostle Paul addresses the members of the church of Ephesus, he calls ALL believers "saints." The moment a person is born again his title is changed from Mr. Sinner to Mr. Saint. When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church he said in verse 2 of chapter 1, "Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours::" The simple truth regarding who a saint is found in the operation of initial sanctification. When you were saved God sanctified or set you apart from being a sinner to being a saint. Paul continues in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." When you were saved, you were washed, sanctified and now are no longer view in God's eyes as a sinner condemned, but rather a saint sanctified. When God's children assemble together at church it truly is when the saints come marching in. In addition to addressing the Ephesian congregation as saints, Paul complements them for their faithfulness: "and to the faithful in Christ Jesus." The church of Ephesus was made up of "faithful saints!" This is what we need today. We need church members (saints) who are faithful to ALL the services of the church. We need church members who are faithful to read their Bible. We need church members who are faithful to praying, witnessing and tithing, The greatest ability is dependability, but most church members you can no longer depend upon. If God's saints that have been saved by the blood of Christ would just be faithful to the mission of the local church then we would see a great move of God in our churches. Faithfulness is not dependent upon whether it's convenient! True faithfulness is when something else interferes with your obligations to the Lord and yet you still choose the Lord. That's being faithful. Hebrews 10:25 says, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." It's getting late! The return of Christ is near so get to church! Let's be faithful! Our churches need "The Faithful Saints" to stand up and come marching in!
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