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Transformed By Continuously Beholding Jesus

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Do you want your daily words and actions to be more Christlike but you find that you can’t seem to get the right attitude throughout the day? You may want to consider learning to consciously focus your heart on Jesus. We call this “contemplating Jesus” because it is not meditation (i.e., mulling over, reflecting, gaining understanding), which is important for devotional times, but rather we just gaze on, behold, or give attention to Jesus. Contemplation is just a fancy word for these simple activities. The most profound passage on contemplating Jesus is II Corinthians 3:18: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” Notice that it says “beholding” not “having beheld”. In other words, we are to continuously behold the glory of Jesus and the Father. But the fantastic promise is that Continue Reading →

God Always Enables Us To Do Good Works: Weekly Word Of Encouragement

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 “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”  (II Cor. 9:8) God will provide what we need so that we can do good works. From the context we see that God isn’t just “able” but He is also willing if we trust and submit to Him. And it is important that we understand that God provides for us in order that we can do good works, not just for ourselves. Presumably, that is the desire of our heart. So the good news is that God will fulfill our desire to do good works (a desire that He gave us) by supplying us with what we need. In other words, when we abide in Christ we will always be able to do good works. Sometimes we may feel like we don’t Continue Reading →

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Should We Be Motivated By Heavenly Rewards?

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When we think about our blessings in heaven we usually think about the immense pleasure of just being in God’s presence and enjoying his love. We may not think so much about the rewards God will give because that seems too self-focused. Moreover, how much good is a reward compared to being directly in God’s presence with Jesus? In Bernard of Clairvaux’s (b. 1090 – d. 1153) famous work On Loving God he says that “God is not loved without reward, although he should be loved without regard for one” (Sec. 6.17). Bernard rates loving God for the rewards as only the second of four levels of loving God. And yet scripture repeatedly uses rewards to motivate us to be Christlike. God assures us in Ephesians 6:7-8 that we should do “service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, Continue Reading →

Weekly Word Of Encouragement: God Walks With Us Now

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“For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,”” (II Cor. 6:16) In this passage Paul is explaining to the Corinthians that God has fulfilled his promise from Leviticus 26:12 “And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.” This promise is fulfilled by the fact that the church is the temple of God. Since we are the temple of God, He walks among us now! This is a return to the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:8 when God actually walked in the Garden with Adam and Eve. Likewise, God walks with us now, even if it is not completely obvious yet (“we see in a mirror dimly” (I Cor. 13:12).) Keeping this truth in our heart helps us stay connected to His presence. Application: pick some words from the Continue Reading →

Weekly Word of Encouragement – Our New Self Is Our True Self

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“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” I Cor. 5:17 (ESV) In I Corinthians 5 Paul has been explaining how our inner self has been transformed even though our outer self, our body, has not. In verse 2  he says that “in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.” (ESV) We groan because our body drags us down, not only with physical weakness and disease but also with it fleshly lusts. We don’t want to be influenced by our old corruption but we are. All who long for holiness and love and communion with God wish that they did not have to contend with their weak body. But scripture comforts us by teaching that this is normal. We do not have to be discouraged about our weaknesses; it is just part of Continue Reading →