The Mind Truth has top priority! Do we think about what we are thinking about? Is our thinking and the way we’re thinking aligned with the way God’s word is expressed? Are we willing to submit to the active work of the Holy Spirit in transforming our mind according to the Word of God? With the mind we are to reason with much effort to overcome evil by the exercise of strengthening thought. Thought is real! We are aware that many thoughts flash into the conscious mind unbidden and sometimes even undesired. Thoughts may be presented to us through the senses, or thoughts may be thrown up from the great store of memory. We cannot prevent this fleeting presentation even of evil thoughts, but we are perfectly conscious that we are able to make our selection of which thoughts to encourage and which to reject. Thought in one sense is reality. It precedes and causes action, and it remains after the action is over. We may indulge an evil thought, supposing that it is only a thought, and of no importance. It may be only a thought, but in the final matter, the thought is us. We must pray and meditate that peace may follow. We are to keep studying and being “renewed in knowledge” and exercise the mind in spiritual things. The first thought may come in unawares, but the next thought is under our jurisdiction... whether carnal or spiritual. Strive to enter in the way of the sanctuary. Here we will find spiritual progress. Here we enter into the divine privilege of the mind of Christ. Here we seek his attribute...not my will but thine be done. Here we bring into captivity every thought unto obedience to Christ. Here the mind is vigilant of the difficulties that are possible. Vigilant of the things we hear. The mind is to always examine what we hear against what we know and what we believe. We examine what we have read against what we know or believe and compare them to the Word of God. Without that last and most crucial stage of the process we would be lost in our own understanding or misunderstanding. Here’s a beautiful thing about the mind...it is not flesh. Sinful flesh? Yet with the mind we can cease to sin, in thought and in the flesh. This is that “inner being” we know to be Christ in us. Having the mind of Christ is the returning to the image in which the first man and woman were brought forth. We were created by God to be choice empowered individuals. God will not force us to follow Him. He will however give us the consequences of not following His way. Nothing distracted Jesus from the word of God. We must consciously choose between God and the world. In order for us to make a conscious decision, we must know what God’s word says. God’s word provides not only a source of information, but also transformation. As we study God’s word, we must do so not just to obtain knowledge, but to seek God’s transforming power in our lives by pondering and meditating on His word. We must be willing to let go of any pre-conceived thoughts and allow God’s word to transform us to our original design. God began this work in the first pair, and He will complete what He has begun. What were Jesus’ thoughts? What were his concerns? Doing the will of his Father. Studying the word helps us develop the understanding needed to develop an ordered mind that is in harmony and unity with the purpose of God. How far short we are of such a criterion — our mournful experience can testify. The eyes of our understanding being enlightened is the riches of the inheritance that is in Christ Jesus. To the truth, the word does not say we may have the riches, it says we may know the riches. These riches are in the spirit of wisdom and revelation graced upon the mind. Brothers, sisters, we already have it...we just may not know what we have. Wisdom, which is a spirit gives us light. And that light is the life in Christ. Wisdom gives us life! Wisdom is a spirit, it is not just an understanding, it’s an attitude and a life that we possess. Christ is made unto us wisdom. Therefore we are not to function with human wisdom but with that wisdom that comes from God. We are counseled to seek the ultimate exchange of mind. We are to come to a mind relationship with God through Jesus Christ. This brings us into communion and community by experiencing God, moment by moment. This is life that is anchored in Christ, centered in God’s Word, guided by God’s Spirit and conformed to God’s will. The result of such a life would be authentic witness in the world holding out the word of truth. With this mind we will never forget the word of God. Think of the word hidden in the heart. As we are told to incline the ear, we hear the word and it is filtered through the mind. The mind of Christ is a grace provision from God. And we are joined to the Lord in one spirit...our mind is brought in subjection to the born again spirit. When one is born again we begin to wash our mind in the water of the word. One with Christ in spirit, influences the mind with spirit inspired thoughts. The mind of Christ is a spiritual mind. The spirit through the mind is to have preeminence over the body, the soul. The mind of Christ is the unveiling of the word. Revelation is not bringing in a new truth. It is the unveiling of God’s secret truth. When the word of God is revealed to us, it is unveiled. Spiritual knowledge, understanding, and wisdom removes the veil. The spirit of the Lord gives the revelation and the understanding. God reveals his wisdom and thoughts to us through the Holy Spirit in us. When we are open to his Spirit and listen daily to what the Spirit is saying, our mind becomes like that of Christ. We speak Spirit revealed truth with Spirit revealed words and are able to carefully evaluate and know what to do in the most difficult moments of our life. There will be those who live on an entirely human level who will not understand and will in fact reject this truth. But others will listen and seek us out for counsel. They will seek us out because they see someone who rejects intolerance and embraces diversity. Someone who says no to division and seeks unity. Someone who is blind to self-interest and is willing to sacrifice. Someone who refuses to retaliate. Someone who does not judge. And someone who refuses to give in to hate and loves unconditionally. God chooses a purposed people to speak and do extraordinary things. There is a wisdom that we continually speak of when we are among the spiritually mature. It’s wisdom that didn’t originate in this present age, nor did it come from the rulers of this age who are in the process of being dethroned. Instead, we continually speak of this wonderful wisdom that comes from God. The touchstone of God’s wisdom, isn’t so much knowledge as it is love - love for God, love for neighbor, love for self. With the mind of Christ we’re able to hear, and begin to comprehend more clearly, what the Spirit is speaking to us: through scripture, through nature, through people, through books, through our circumstances, through prayer. With the mind of Christ and ears that hear, we can increasingly discern and distinguish the right season and the right time. When to act, when to wait. When to be led, when to lead. When to speak, when to remain silent. The Spirit gives us the spiritual smarts to wisely consider and appraise our decisions and actions. With our minds illumined and our will empowered, we can be of one mind - the mind of Christ. We put others’ needs before our own. We die to our comfortable certitudes. We follow our conscience while bearing with others who think differently. With the mind of Christ, we can mind our differences. We can keep talking together - earnestly and sometimes passionately, forgiving and figuring out together how to follow Christ together in community. With the mind of Christ, God is the source of our spirituality and has our full participation in His every purpose. This gift of godly wisdom isn’t earned, discovered, or created by human beings. Only God can reveal God. Without the Spirit, God’s wisdom is inaccessible and impenetrable. So, if God gives us His Spirit, if Christ spiritually and transcendentally establishes his mind in our mind, we have a whole ‘nother story. God’s Spirit dives deep into the depths of God. The Spirit helps us to know and appreciate the wonderful things God has freely given us. This divine and mysterious wisdom can’t be found in books. We can only learn it directly and firsthand from God through our Jesus. We learn and communicate the things of God from God. This is amazing. Something we could never have conceived or imagined ourselves. And it has been God’s plan from the very beginning. We’re described as a peculiar people in the Scriptures, meaning we belong to a different order. We have a different way of doing things, a different set of priorities than the rest of the world. And the Spirit not only gives us wisdom, but the Spirit teaches us how to apply it, appropriately and wisely to our lives and with others. God gifts us with spiritual sensitivity, spiritual awareness. But God’s wisdom is like an eternity. We can never come to the end of it. We hone and mature our faith by becoming like a child, being reborn by the Spirit. It is only by believing in the crucified and risen Christ that we can really begin to understand what Godly wisdom is. Another word for God’s wisdom is “the mind of Christ”. In our faith, with all truth, because of God’s love we’ve been given a new mindset, a new attitude, a new way of seeing and thinking and being, a new way of living and relating to God and to others. This of course doesn’t mean that we know everything about God. But we can know more of who we are called by purpose to be. Human wisdom resists God. God’s wisdom is rooted in the crucified Christ. We look to God for guidance. God’s wisdom gives us the spiritual wherewithal to be humble and serving and loving like the crucified Christ, even when it’s not easy. We act with maturity, completeness, wholeness, and soundness. This aligns us with Christ in our speaking, our thinking, our acting. We are now the body of Christ with the mind of Christ. We bear witness to every new truth learned. We see better how God gives the gospel. By it we apprehend what we cannot see. It is given us above all, to call up the scenes and facts in which we are commanded to believe, and be present, as if in the body, at every recorded event of the history of the Redeemer. Whatever we find in Christ of spiritual habit or principle must find place in us. It will not avail us to think on the work and character of the Savior if we do not come to Him and experience His saving power. His mind must be our mind. Every truth we learn was truth before. We just did not know it. It is God's love that is the fountain and continuous support of our love. Our love does not create the love of God. It is the love of God that creates our love. His love is the power of our loving. That which is true of God's love is true, also, of His truth. It is that truth which lays hold upon us, rather than we upon it. We do not make truth by believing it. God's truth is there irrespective of us, and our seizing it is simply the opening of our life to its seizure and sway. We do not make the truths of our faith true for us by believing them. We simply enable ourselves to see what is true - true whether we see it or not. It is the grasp of the truth upon us that we are willing to die for. And the truth comes of Christ, who is the truth, and by God’s grace we may have the mind of Christ. And the mind of Christ starts with the revelation of God and His relationship with His creation. With this mind God expects to see us at last conformed to the image of His Son. If God has such a hope for us, we ought to awake to this hope for ourselves. The one thing which is to be most clear and emphatic in our minds is the fact that any hope we may cherish must rest on the foundation of our faith in Christ. We are to have no complacency in the record of our lives. From this present standpoint, we should see more clearly than ever before the absolute need of a vicarious salvation. Even if we have to hide ourselves alone in the chamber for a time. God is calling us by His Son who, when we were sinners, came forth after us; not in vain, so let us assure Him, and not in vain. Two kinds of salvation are proposed to us today; salvation by character and salvation to character. God has called a people who are the most humble and self-distrustful, least willing to set themselves up as of any worth because of any accomplishment of theirs in the production of character. The essence of salvation is a victory over sin, which no man ever won or can win, in his own strength, and its truest mark is a beauty of humbleness which repudiates all regard for self. With the mind of Christ, being found in Christ, our salvation is reasonable. We can be released from the clutch...when I would do good, evil is present with me. The momentum of habit, the waywardness of desire, the gravitation of the brute in us, give to sin a fearful grip upon the mind and will. We want this broken. Where is the strong deliverer who will shatter it for us We look for Jesus. He is not yet in our character. That is where the very forces are found which need to be rent asunder and overmastered for us. And even with this power of evil broken, we are still undone. The strength of sin shattered, we are still a weak people. The will of God must be done, not merely suffered. How can we do it? There is work to be finished before the night comes. We need a fellowship richer, more penetrative, more understanding, than any human friendship or relationship can supply. We want God in Christ. God has a purpose to conclusively provide this for His circumcised election. There is in us the principle of a living power producing in us, by the humbling and creative might of God, a new character. What we cannot do, we can have. We cannot make a character, but God will make one in us. Our very inability is God's favorable moment. If God were not involved, it would be otherwise; we could then work out our own salvation. Only in that case there would be no salvation worth speaking of; the end of it all would be gone. The very ideal of it would dry out and decay. But introduce God, and at once salvation becomes the restoration of the soul to Him and the only power of salvation becomes His power, who will do for us what we can only attempt to do for ourselves. God in Christ and Christ in us can annul for us the bondage of the past. Too many believe they cannot be forgiven. And this prevents them from coming to Christ. They are where we were. We must speak the everlasting gospel. If only they could feel sure that they would be forgiven, multitudes who are now distant from the kingdom would pour into it. We are in the hour of God. He has waited for us in this mood. Here is He as He is shown to us in His word... Father, we have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight. We are no more worthy to be called thy son. But while we were yet afar off, our father saw us and was moved with compassion and ran and fell on our neck and kissed us. God can annul the effects of the past. Thank God for repentance which can undo the consequence of it. Here is how we were purposed ever before we did any good or evil. All that is in the effect must have been in the cause. But not all that is in any cause needs to come out in the effects. God in Christ can frustrate, divert, overpower streams which pour down out of the past. Some of them can be turned back, some stopped, some directed to far nobler ends than those for which they set out. For the effects of all wrongdoing we can, in Christ, make restitution, and - what is far more significant - we can let Christ reach back to the wrongdoing, and thwart it by bending its further consequences to good. Here is the cause and effect of the mind of Christ in us. God will enrich tomorrow to atone for the lost opportunities of the past. He will restore the years which the locust has eaten. We can never be again what we were, but we can be now what we never were. God makes the right use of the past, namely, to get a future out of it. And, lastly, God will restore the child heart and its joys. It is the loss of the child heart which is the chief penalty for a wrong past. And the recovery of that heart is life's great longing as we go on. The torment of sin is that we cannot forget. And its punishment is God's remembrance. And His remembrance will be judgment for the uncircumcised. But God remembers His covenant. We find it intriguing that in that covenant, He actually promises that there is something He will forget. It is the loving forgetfulness of God that makes the new heaven and earth in which the redeemed of the Lord walk and are at peace...and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. It is with the mind of Christ that our strength is renewed. And the mind is weaned from all things, except as may be enjoyed in the divine will of God. It is led by the spirit of truth. This must be our law. Doing right because it is right, and for the sake of the God of right alone. Our Lord did only what was right, and He showed Himself to be the Son of God by the way He infallibly discovered and unfailingly did that which was perfectly right. What are we to consider with the mind of Christ? The word is right. What does it mean to have the mind of Christ? It is to reflect the character of Jesus. To praise him. And real praise is much more than mere verbal commendation. It is moral imitation. And if we sin, there is failure to imitation Jesus. Sin is any want of conformity unto or any transgression of the law of God. And the law of God is the way of God — the law of God embodied in His character. God's law is the way God Himself acts. His law of truth or purity is simply the description of His own method of action. Sin on our part is any deviation from this. It is any failure to imitate and resemble God. This is not a call to be like God. It is on the ground of our sonship as God’s dear children. That is a thought that takes away all the irreverence and absurdity of the conception of imitating God. If we are God's dear children, with His nature in us, made in His likeness, nothing can be more natural and right than that we should be like our Father. It is as sons that we are to seek to resemble God in moral right doing. With the mind of Christ the word is nigh us, nearer even than our hearts. God is nearer than our thought of Him. And we are simply to be like Him. Only Christ opens up a way of such access to God as makes us reverently familiar with God, as children with their father. And Christ has done more than this. He has shown God to us in His own being as truth and love and life. It is no longer we that live, but Christ lives in us. Has any one who has not seen God in this dark world, and who is looking for Him, been able to see in us any trait of His character, imitated and reproduced in Christ in us? We confess Christ to men, and we become new men in Christ. The leap of faith in utterance confirms the vision of faith in the soul. Being like Christ, and having His spirit, mean first of all the love of the truth, the search for the truth, the openness of soul to the truth, the spiritual vision which He possessed. There is to be this spiritual growth of mind as our perception of truth is heaven sourced. Our human conceptions involve the relations of time and space, but there will be no time in eternity, and no space in infinity. Yet all our language in which we must speak and think of heaven is made out of metaphors of time and space. God cannot speak to us of the eternal and infinite life except in the language of time that is not eternity, and space that is not infinity. What He has said, accordingly, we cannot always understand. All our earthly experience of God in Christ will be transcended in heaven. There will be nothing that lack in the new creation. The inward moral apprehension gives us confidence of this. Yet there is this wonder we know to be...in our commonness we shall keep with those we loved on earth in the greatness of His love. We should for every eternity be together in the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. We must contribute more to our witness while here. Being connected with Christ we will depart from iniquity. Our growth in grace, our joy in service, our usefulness in the cause of God, all depend on our union with Christ, and the degree of faith we exercise in Him. Surely God would have us seek for perfection of love and humility of soul, and cultivate those excellencies of character that will fit us for the society of the pure and holy. And if the Bible nowhere explicitly states that we shall know one another and preserve our own personalities in the heavenly life, it is only because its writers never thought of anything else. We continue to be ourselves in the heavenly life, but with personality and characters formed by the mind of Christ. The eternal existence of the great heroes and heroines of the faith and their long and vigilant interest in what we do for them is urged by the writer of the Hebrews as a motive for single-eyed devotion to Christ and to patient and uncompromising loyalty to His call. Indeed, this writer declares that these souls are waiting for us, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Then we shall know ourselves and one another and God even as we are known. We shall not be lost in the other world in a promiscuous mist of souls. We shall know our selves and other souls. There we shall discover that our loves were eternal, because love is of God. God cannot at this time tell us all that is prepared for us. We could not understand if He did. But one thing He has taught us by the indisputable convictions of our hearts and by the clear implication of His word...we shall be like Christ! Within the Word of God, there is the ability of God to perform His will. By conveying His thought to us through the Word of God, in the mind of Christ, God can will and work His own good pleasure in and through us. Our minds must transcend. We live in a new kingdom so we must fill our minds with the knowledge of the laws and privileges that we are to abide by in this new realm. We cannot live in this new kingdom and then go on thinking of the memory and the limitations that the old has taught us. We have been completely reversed from the old; it no longer exists as far as God is concerned. This new kingdom is appropriated by faith only. We live in Christ. The world has no dominion over us. The mind of Christ is one of self-surrender to the will of God and to the needs of others. The mind of Christ possesses unity. The mind of Christ pursues the humility modeled by the Lord. The mind of Christ makes certain the accomplishing of the gospel message; the greatest need in our life today is not the mind of Christ but the life of Christ. It is the response to the prayer of Christ. Wisdom is necessary for God’s people to mature in faith. There are many who profess Christ as Savior today, and yet are not mature in the faith. But as believers we can’t always tell what the Lord is doing in another believer’s life. God may be working in someone in a way that looks totally strange to another, but God is most likely weaving a different tapestry with their life than He is with the other’s. To have the mind of Christ means we have God’s thoughts and are Holy Spirited minded for spiritual discernment.

created to belong Created to belong and love means that we are inherently designed to experience connection and love within a community, signifying a deep- seated purpose to be part of something larger than oneself and to express regard towards others; this concept is associated with spiritual beliefs, where the truth is that we are made by God with the inherent capacity for relationship and love. We are incredibly loved and made for purpose. Our faith is evidenced in obedience, and we are commanded to love one another. Faith is intensely individual because no one can force us to believe anything. God gives to all the measure of faith, however, the choice to exercise faith is a conscious personal decision. But faith must be practiced in community. So belonging is marked by obedience to God’s summons and by the promise and heart of Jesus. This is a supernatural kind of togetherness, given to believers by the Holy Spirit. It isn’t defined by how we’re similar to one another but rather by how we overcome the differences the world around us might use to separate us from Christ. Jesus offers absolute, unhindered belonging in and through himself. It’s upward-pointing belonging so that the world may know that God chose us. This is the gathering. Our every discourse is to bring us to the knowledge of the only living and true God. And let us understand this from the beginning - God is love means, the living, dynamic activity of love has been going on in God forever, and has created everything else. He is, in every particular manner, the Creator of man, of all mankind. God made the first man, he makes every man, He is the former of every man's body and the Father of every man's spirit. He has made the nations of men, not only all men in the nations, but as nations in our geopolitical capacity; He is our founder, and disposed us all into communities for our mutual preservation and benefit. He made us all of one blood, of one and the same nature; He fashions our hearts alike. We are descended from one and the same common ancestor, in Adam we are all akin, so as we are in Noah, that thereby we might be engaged in mutual affection and assistance, as fellow-creatures and brethren. Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? He made us not to live in one place, but to be dispersed over all the earth; one nation therefore ought not to look with contempt upon another. For those on all the face of the earth are of the same blood. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. The bone of my bone, the flesh of my flesh, that becomes one flesh is the bonding union of love. Now here is the truth revealed in the narrative…blood does not make the family, love does. The bonds of love must be our chosen connection. That is the core idea that is of God, for God is love! And He so loved us that He gave us His Son. Thereby we are made one in Him by his blood-stained love. The life is in the blood, and it is because of God’s love that we have life. Love exists to ensure the flourishing of both truth and life for all who seek them. More precious than riches, true love is the font from which all that is good springs. Love is to be preserved and enriched. God’s people appreciate all forms of love as long as the expression of that love does not unjustly harm others. No one loves like God without God’s help. Love is a good gift of God’s common grace meant for our development. Our love is more than a sentiment – it is a principle. A principle founded on the truth that God is a spirit and God is love. The spirit of the Lord's people is a love which is far above selfishness, and is based upon fixed principles, which should, day by day, be more and more distinctly discerned, and always firmly adhered to at any cost. Love is the principal thing! At its core, biblical love is selfless, committed to truth, and driven by a divine work inside of us. It never happens unless we draw near to God in Christ. Our belonging is to always be discerned with a practical self-examination on love. We are "to prove ourselves" by this examination of love - whether we are something or nothing, in God's estimation, is to be measured by our love for Him, our love for Christ, for His brethren, for His cause, for the world in general and even for our enemies, rather than by our knowledge, or our oratory. Love is the very spirit of the begetting to the new nature. We are not to understand that one could have a knowledge of the deep mysteries of God without having been begotten by the holy spirit of love; for the deep things of God knoweth no man, but by the spirit of God; but one might lose the spirit before losing the knowledge it brought him. In the measure of character, therefore, we are to put love first, and to consider it the chief test of our nearness to and acceptance with the Lord. Try describing God as a spirit. Try describing God as love. The measure of our appreciation that God is a spirit and that God is love will be the measure of our zeal in conforming our characters to His divine pattern. Biblical love can also be expressed and experienced in any relationship. That means we must do that which is first; and that is love toward God, love toward Christ and love for the truth. Love of the truth comes before love of the brethren every time. In fact, if we truly love the brethren, we will adhere to the truth at all costs. It is deeper than any romantic type love enjoyed in the ultimate union of two. Biblical love takes us even deeper into that wondrous love of God. Our love for one another models his covenant love for us - a love so zealous to uphold his covenant with us that he will die for us, even when he had every justification to leave us. Death is at the center of God’s love for us, and death is at the heart of all biblical love. We are betrothed by a vow to die to self, for the other - to keep the covenant at all costs, doing whatever good thing it takes to serve God’s purpose. This relationship is grounded in deep eternal truths. This kind of love comes out of who God is. God is love. His very essence and makeup and character is love defined. Because of this, we must seek our love for one another from him. In order to love our every family member rightly, and deeply, we need the love of the Father to be infused in us. These graces must be produced by the Spirit of love, filling and expanding within our own heart. The truth of our image of divinity must radiant a sense of harmony and eternal love. The night before Jesus gave His life for us, just hours before He was arrested, beaten, and falsely accused, He gave His disciples a new commandment – a new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. Christ tells us to reflect the same kind of love that He would show on the cross - pure, sacrificial, enduring love. Christ would submit Himself to pain, rejection, shame, suffering, and death, all to bring people back to the Creator Father. The love of Christ working in us is the anchor underneath the rise and fall of every trial we are to pass through. We could never reflect that kind of love without God’s help. So, God pours His love into us through the gift of His Spirit, and that love grows in and around us. When others see that love, they know that Someone special is working through us. We must serve with love - we cannot survive without it. To be truly a godly people, we must reflect all of God’s character. We must be just, true, and righteous, and we must be loving. If we do not love others, we do not give them a complete picture of God. Love is our choosing to reflect God’s goodness to others. By God’s grace, we love people, we encourage them, we challenge them, and we connect them to His truth. But the love of truth doesn’t necessarily mean attachment. Sometimes it’s best to love from a distance; to let another grow and develop. This does not mean that love would treat evil-doers in precisely the same manner as it would treat its friends. This is why love needs to be firm and inflexible where clear principles are involved, where valuable lessons are to be inculcated. There is a time when righteous indignation must be exercised, but it must be exercised in doing good, and must not lead to bitterness or harshness toward others whom we would assist or instruct or correct. Sometimes it is necessary to take notice of offenses on the part of others and to withhold a certain degree of cordiality; but no hatred, malice or strife should be manifested. We are never to barter with truth, yet always striving to leave the door of opportunity open for a full reconciliation as soon as possible. We must love the truth so much that we embrace it and serve it and stand up for it, even though this might mean the loss of religious friends and the loss of the esteem of our relatives and neighbors. In the Lord's estimation, it is all the same whether we are ashamed of Him or ashamed of His Word; and of all such He declares that He will be ashamed when He comes to be glorified in His saints. We will never rejoice in iniquity, but rather we will rejoice only in the truth. As we love by the power of this Spirit, we share in the life, death, resurrection, and love of Christ. This love is something that can only be experienced and expressed by a true follower of Christ. God is love, but love is not a god. We do not worship love. God is love, but He is also holy, just, good, and true. Since true love reflects God’s goodness, we must study God to know what our love should look like - and what it should not look like. An appetite for self-aggrandizement, ignorance, ignoring truth and sin, can, over time, corrupt our “love” into something hurtful. From God flows all grace, goodness, and truth. To truly love others, therefore, we should connect them to the goodness of God. We should comfort and encourage them with the truth. We should help them understand God’s Word. We should help them seek God’s will for their lives. This highest form of love makes no sense apart from God. This love is a decision that can only be made by those who abide in Christ - by those who represent His love to others. This is the love that lasts beyond human attraction or other forms of bonding. Its foundation is not sin - nor is it even built on good things like fun, companionship, or desire. Rather, this love is built on God’s love for us. God defines what is good, so God defines what is love. To love others, therefore, we must know God and rest in His love for us. God is the epitome, the embodiment of true love. All His attributes work in harmony with perfect love - even if we don’t always understand how. The clearest act of love is the clearest reflection of God’s character. God made us in His image. Though we don’t yet understand all of what that idea means, scripture explains that we have a spiritual dimension to our being - something that points to a higher reality. And even though we have tarnished His image, we are to reflect it in the highest spiritual dimension of our being. He expects us to reflect His love and truth to others. Consider the love at the cross. God took all the punishment for all the sin every person has ever committed - and bore it Himself. He tore Himself apart for us - suffering the lashes and the torture, but more painfully, He divided the Father from the Son for the first time in all eternity. He endured this separation in order to bridge the divide between Himself and us. Only someone with the purest love could choose this kind of suffering to reach out to people who rejected Him. The best form of love that can ever be is the love of God. It endures with and for us day after day. It was the truth on the cross that showed the love of God. Jesus says, “I and my Father are One.” Truth and love must be kept in perfect balance. That is how we present the message of the bible. Love resolves that great mystery of death. Because we love we understand the sorrow of death, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword. The great gift of life – love and faith make every life a gift from God. And because God is love, love is not contained by the boundaries of our physical bodies, it returns to us through the Spirit. We are commanded to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. We must love Jesus more than father, mother, son, or daughter. Two powerful, deep, life-transforming commands. What is the relationship between these loves? What is the nature of these loves? It is massively relevant that we understand this love. The love God calls us to is a long process. It goes well beyond love at first sight, and focuses ahead instead on eternity. This love is a choice and a well-developed practice - a grace- filled, moment-by-moment, day-by-day effort. Biblical love is going long distance, We worship God and we worship Jesus. Loving Jesus is the test of whether we love God. Loving God is the test of whether we truly love Jesus. This is deeper than mere affections. This love is transformative. It is the obedience to every command of God. Love is God’s willingness to show up as all of creation…the divine purpose to come into being - to come into form according to its own desire to express Itself. This expressed purpose was cause and effect. God came forth in Christ made in God’s image and likeness. This is the form that love takes. We are in the last time and love working through us will show up in difficult ways. Love is the power of God working in us that keeps the storm going on outside in the world from affecting us on the inside. Love is the spiritual truth that connects and keeps us in Christ as the bigger storm approaches. There is a presence in us, a creative intelligence in us, an infinite consciousness that we call God within and its nature is Love. This presence is at the very center of our consciousness. In the depth of our being, there is a spirit within every one of us that is not and cannot be touched by outer circumstances, no matter what storm we are currently traveling through. It is the love of God. This love in us bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. God’s grace, His mercy takes form within us. God’s impartial nature, His image and likeness allows us to choose, and to choose again. Love willingly allows itself to fill the mold we create by our choices. By this we choose our way through life. How might you and I behave because we know that there is such a Presence in us and in the person we are speaking to and about? Hard conversations would find appropriate words. Structure and consistency would find boundary and agreement. We are created to belong to God and to one another. There is a very close relationship of how we love God and the way we experience God. The only image of God which is adequate is ourselves. We are the image of God, and this image of God is made magnificently visible in Jesus. Jesus who reflects to us who we truly are. He is the mirror, as it were, of our true self, the image of the invisible God in us. Scriptural reasoning teaches us that we must let go of God, the God of our minds, the God of our concepts in order to love the God of creation, the God whom we come to know only in the mind of Christ. To love, we must move beyond the image that may have formed itself in our minds in order to find the reality of God as manifested in Jesus himself. We must know God by love. Love means being united in the same act. It means both loving and being loved. It is not fully love until the loving and the being loved are being balanced. Love is only fulfilled when the passive and the active dimensions or elements are balanced; and the receptive part of ourselves, the interior part of ourselves, is balanced by the giving fully of ourselves as was the Son of God given fully to us. The giving of love, the receiving of love, and the ecstasy of love is in the Spirit. We see it expressed perfectly in the language of Jesus as he describes his relationship as God the Son with God the Father through his human relationship with his Father. He does not exclude from that human relationship with his Father all his human relationships with his family, his friends, his disciples, and indeed all humanity. Learning to love ourselves, which is the first step into this balance of love, requires that we learn to be still, that we learn to accept ourselves, to know ourselves and to allow ourselves to be led beyond ourselves through stillness of the spirit. Learning to love others means, in that stillness, we allow ourselves to learn to accept others and see others for what they really are, not putting them into the molds of our own desires or our own fears, or projecting our images onto them, but allowing ourselves to see them and relate to them as they are in themselves in Christ. We need to be able to see our relationships as something that we share with others, as the covenant of God’s love brings us, each of us and all of us, to wholeness, to the wholeness that allows us to share in the very being of God through Jesus. It is love that divines us. And we learn to love to love ourselves, to love others - we learn to love by entering into the mystery of relationship. So, learning to love ourselves and learning to love others, going hand in hand, teaches us how to love God. It teaches us who God is, because it is only by loving that we discover who God is. The unloving know nothing of God. Prepare for the very difficult ways that are going to show up in this last time. We must have the deepest love, the deepest faith in God. That is a wonderful description of wholeness. It’s the wholeness that we are to seek: the balance, the integration, the reconciliation of all things in our lives in love – all things. If we learn to love ourselves by being still, and we learn to love others by withdrawing the way we project our reactions on to them, we learn to love God simply by being loved, by allowing ourselves to be loved. Our love of God originates in God’s love for us. There’s nothing more obvious than that God must have loved us first; God has created us out of his love for us. Nothing is more obvious, but it’s the obvious that we always forget. What we learn in deliberately focusing with spiritual awareness is to remember that God loved us first, and by opening ourselves to that truth, by accepting that truth, we experience the love of God flooding our inmost heart through the Holy Spirit he has given us. We experience ourselves loved; we accept ourselves as loved; we allow ourselves to be loved. That is what we are doing in a heightened spiritual sense. And it is as a direct result of that, that we are empowered to love ourselves, and love others, and love God. We don’t love God before God loves us and we don’t love God so that He will love us. The true center of reality then is that the experience of being loved, is the whole meaning of redemption, and that impels a response in us. We don’t have to try to love others. It’s impossible to try, to force ourself to love someone, to force ourself to love ourself. It isn’t an act of the will. We are impelled by the very nature of the experience of being loved by God to become loving. It reveals to us our spiritual nature and our spiritual potential. The journey from head to heart is one of the longest and most difficult that we have to traverse. How might we understand what it is to love God with our entire being? With the very essence of our spiritual being? It is not just about obtaining knowledge, but about growing in wisdom. This is deeper than the mind and deeper than the reactions. It opens us up to the fundamental relationship of our being, the deepest identity we have. And it’s in this relationship with God that all our other relationships, including even our relationship with ourselves, are rooted. What can be deeper than our relationship with ourselves? What is deeper is our relationship with God, the source of our being. This experience of being loved by God floods the mind and floods the emotions, and even floods the body. It transfigures every aspect of our being - body and mind, all the levels of the mind. But it is deeper than all of that. It is precisely because it can touch every part of our being, including our spirit that it is deeper than them all. It can be seen by the mind to some degree, and it can be felt in the emotions, and the emotions are part of our bodies. When we become whole, the more whole we become, the more integrated we become, the more we realize that this love of God is not only the background radiation of the universe; it is what we as a whole person are bathed in. Here we discover one of the great fruits of spiritual discernment, in that this experience of God, silently and through stillness, and unselfconsciously, develops and flowers in us day by day through our journey of self- reflection in Christ. This experience of God sends us back to the words and the images of the gospel, not only our own gospel but indeed all scriptures. It enhances our idea of God as it penetrates our knowledge of ourselves. We notice phrases, words, images in scripture that we didn’t even notice before. We notice that Jesus, for example, calls God the One who truly is; we notice that revelation is reality. We begin to understand that God is greater than our conscience. That God is greater than our conscience means that God is deeper than our own thought projection, deeper than our very essence, deeper than our concept of righteousness. God is the wisdom which enlightens all light. And this enlightenment is the combination of our own experience and the teaching we receive through the wisdom of the understanding of the enlightened minds of the past. We learn that the only morality is the morality of love; that forgiveness and compassion are not signs of weakness or compromise or condescension, but forgiveness and compassion are the very structure of reality. This is the God who is equally loving to good and bad alike. This experience of loving God is rooted in our capacity to be loved. And it’s the great quality of a child that a child wants to be loved. It is that child-like capacity to be loved that we recover through meditation, our deepest and truest identity as a child of God. And it is this self-knowledge of ourselves as a child of God wanting to be loved, and accepting the poverty, the vulnerability of needing to be loved - it’s that which heals us to ponder all the day remembering God. God created us to belong. Sin hindered every relationship. God determined all things from the beginning and purposed us in Jesus Christ to good works. Our path is one of the spirit. Our deepest identity is that we struggle with. It is a real part of us, but it is not the whole person. Our deepest identity is our identity as a child of God, and it is by discovering that and knowing that, that we release the pursuit of self. God shows us Jesus. He shows us love in its capacity to replace impatience and intolerance with understanding and compassion and love. Love sustains, love strengthens; love is the willingness of all sacrifice as it manifests character. This is the higher calling of God. God’s love is such of faith that we must have the mind of Christ to have the revelation of the reality to even be conscious of His love let alone His invisibility. Because God's love is so profound and beyond human comprehension, we can only truly understand and experience it by aligning our thoughts and perspectives with that of Jesus Christ, essentially "having the mind of Christ," which allows us to access a deeper understanding of God's love through faith. An unconditional, sacrificial love…how can we grasp it. In Jesus, characterized by humility, compassion, and an intenseness on serving others. We must have a spiritual experience through faith to begin to comprehend the intentions of such love. And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God is to have confidence in the day of judgment. God has never been seen. In other words, because God is love, He can never be an object outside of ourselves. It is the mind that is always creating an eternal reality. We do this continually, which is why in our prayer we need to go deeper than the mind, to that level of our being - the heart, the spirit where there is no thing outside of us; where we understand that we are in relationship, in communion, in the dance of being, with everything that is in God. And this is what each of us is called to, each of us is capable of. That’s why in our meditation, we surrender God in us. We surrender all ideas or images of God as being an object that can be seen, or a thing that can be thought, some thing outside of ourselves. As a believer, the thoughts and ideas that shape our beliefs and attitudes must be filtered through truth. God has never been seen, but dwells in us if we love one another. That is the whole structure of the believer’s life. God cannot be seen but dwells in us, if we love one another. Love is then brought to perfection. Love is a school. We are learning to love by loving. Meditation is the principal lesson by which we are learning. We learn from meditation that love is the only thing on which we will be evaluated as the aim of life. We must offer love in abundance without guile or deceit. Ours must be tendrils of love clinging to the garment of God visibly woven, maintained, and restored through grace. We are to strive for the love that can only be reached when human love is intense and always present as of Jesus. Beyond the confines of worldly relationships, in all places, at all times, under all circumstances. For such a one, all experiences and perceptions are suffused with love, all thoughts, words and deeds emanate from this love, all relationships and interactions are based on love. This aspect of love is imperishable, it is eternal. This degree of love is immanent in everyone - as human beings, we all have the potential to attain this manner of love. We must understand the difference between relationship and encounter. Encounter is to meet as an adversary or enemy. It is that unexpected experience whereby we are faced with hostility. It’s a confrontation measured by violence and controversial circumstances. A relationship is a connection regarding and behaving toward another where thoughtful and clear support and growth are fostered. It is the sincere belonging and sharing of experiences always in the openness of truth. Love is the foundation of God-purposed relationships, and that love should be characterized by selflessness, kindness, and forgiveness. There is no gap, no compromise in a truthful love relationship – only one side – the Lord’s side. Focused and driven mutually and prayerfully in its Christ centeredness. As we come to the fullness of such love, we will experience a peace that passes all understanding. This is the resurrection power of faithful, sacrificial, joyful, biblical love. We will be the people of God who are arranged in advance to be spoken of in generations of eternities by sincere men and women. We will be living answers to the question of "what is love". 📖 Applying the Study For ongoing spiritual encouragement and prophetical insights, visit Higher Learning.

5 stones There is a biblical account in 1 Samuel 17 that led to the death of Goliath by the hand of David in his youth. Let’s read it: Read 1 Samuel 17 [37] David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee. [38] And Saul armed David with his armour, and he put an helmet of brass upon his head; also he armed him with a coat of mail. [39] And David girded his sword upon his armour, and he assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved (tested, tried) them. And David put them off him. [40] And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine. The account of David and Goliath recorded in 1 Samuel 17 is not merely history; it is a God-given revelation of how heaven works when faith cooperates with divine power. Scripture does not present David’s victory as an isolated event, but as part of a consistent, unchanging principle: God conquers His enemies through faith-filled obedience, not through human strength. David declared with certainty, not possibility, “The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine” (1 Samuel 17:37). This was not presumption—it was faith grounded in experience with God. When Saul clothed David with armor, David removed it, saying, “I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them” (1 Samuel 17:39). David understood a foundational truth of Scripture: methods not appointed by God cannot secure victories ordained by God. The Word consistently testifies that deliverance comes by reliance upon the Spirit of the LORD, not human apparatus. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). David’s rejection of the armor was an act of spiritual discernment, not youthful defiance. Scripture states plainly that David “chose him five smooth stones out of the brook” (1 Samuel 17:40). God does not record unnecessary details. The inclusion of five stones is intentional and instructive. While only one stone was used, the presence of five establishes preparedness under divine guidance, not uncertainty. David did not doubt God’s power, but neither did he act carelessly. Faith never negates readiness; it sanctifies it. Yet when the moment of conflict came, one stone—guided by God—was sufficient to end the battle (1 Samuel 17:49). This victory by a stone is not an isolated biblical motif. In 1 Samuel 7, Israel was delivered from the Philistines when they turned fully to the LORD. After God thundered upon their enemies, Samuel set up a stone and named it Ebenezer, declaring, “Hitherto hath the LORD helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12). That stone stood as a permanent witness that deliverance belongs to God alone. The same Philistine power that opposed Israel corporately was embodied in Goliath individually. Scripture presents no ambiguity here: Goliath was the Philistines’ champion, their representative, and his fall signified God’s judgment upon the enemy of His people. The certainty of this pattern reaches its prophetic climax in Daniel 2. Nebuchadnezzar’s image, representing all earthly dominions, stood upon unstable feet of iron and clay. A stone, “cut out without hands,” struck the image and destroyed it entirely (Daniel 2:34–35). Scripture itself interprets this stone as the kingdom of God, established by divine authority, not human agency (Daniel 2:44–45). This is the same God-formed stone principle seen with David: what God prepares, God empowers, and God uses to overthrow all opposition. David’s stone was smooth, taken from a brook. Scripture does not present this detail accidentally. Throughout the Word of God, water consistently represents the work of the Holy Spirit in cleansing, shaping, and giving life. Jesus declared, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,” and the evangelist explains, “This spake he of the Spirit” (John 7:38–39). Isaiah likewise records, “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty… I will pour my spirit upon thy seed” (Isaiah 44:3). The brook from which David selected his stones represents the continual, patient work of the Holy Spirit upon God’s instruments. A stone does not become smooth in a moment. Its sharp edges are worn away through constant contact with flowing water. In the same way, God’s people are shaped through repeated surrender to the Spirit’s influence. The Holy Spirit removes pride, self-reliance, and roughness of character, producing meekness, humility, and obedience. This process is not symbolic imagination; it is a confirmed biblical principle. Paul writes that believers are “washed… sanctified… justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). David’s stone was already prepared before the battle because God had already been at work. David’s years in solitude, guarding sheep, communing with God, and trusting Him in moments of danger were the means by which the Spirit shaped him as well. The Spirit of Prophecy affirms this certainty, stating that David’s faith “was strengthened by communion with God” and that his victory over Goliath was the direct result of trust developed in the quiet places of duty (Patriarchs and Prophets, chapter 63). It explains that God educates His servants through trial and discipline, fitting them for greater responsibilities. The smooth stone from the brook and the shepherd prepared in the wilderness testify to the same truth: the Holy Spirit prepares God’s instruments long before they are called into open conflict. The Bible is equally certain concerning grace. Grace is not theoretical; it is operative power. When David later found favor with Saul (1 Samuel 16:22–23), Scripture reveals that God used David as a channel of peace and deliverance. The apostle Paul confirms the same principle when Christ declares, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Grace is divine strength manifested through human weakness. The certainty of overcoming is one of the strongest testimonies of Scripture. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world” (1 John 5:4). Christ Himself promises power, authority, and permanence to those who overcome (Revelation 2–3). Overcoming is not optional, theoretical, or symbolic—it is the expected outcome of a life united with Christ by faith. Though David carried five stones, God required only one. This reveals a settled truth of Scripture: when faith, obedience, and divine purpose are perfectly aligned, nothing more is needed. Scripture consistently exalts the power of oneness—one God, one faith, one Spirit, one body, one victory. Christ prayed, “That they all may be one… that the world may believe” (John 17:21). Unity with God is power. David’s stone was not powerful because of David, but because of God. The lesson of the five stones is ultimately the lesson of the one stone: God never employs excess when faith is complete, because perfect trust gives Him unrestricted access to act with full authority. As Scripture declares, “From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel” (Genesis 49:24). The same God who prepared the stone, guided the sling, and felled the giant still prepares His people today. His method has not changed. His power has not diminished. His certainty remains absolute. 📖 Applying the Study For ongoing spiritual encouragement and prophetical insights, visit Higher Learning.

OnlineBibleCourse: Deepen your search for truth in the bible and learn about Christ. Sounds of Manna -Hymn 10 - Jesus Paid It All Play Video Free books! Play Video Be Transformed Play Video The Truth Watch Now Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tumblr Copy Link Link Copied Close DISCLAIMER: PLEASE NOTE ALL INFORMATION PROVIDED ARE EXTRACTS, EXCERPTS, OR COMPILATIONS AND ARE NOT COPYEDITED. MANY WORKS OF VARIOUS AUTHORS ARE USED. THERE IS NO AUTHOR HERE…IT IS A COMPILATION FOR YOUR LEARNING Schedule Learn at your own pace. Grade your own quizzes. No schedule. No deadline. Contact He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone , and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. Revelation 2:17 KJV Online Bible Courses No Cost *New Blog Entries Added Weekly* Bible Prophecy Charts & Maps Learn where we are in the stream of time Bible Helpful Links From reputable sources About About White Stone Bible Study Online/OnlineBibleCourse Have you had questions about the Bible? Perhaps you just want to know more about the life of Jesus or how to become a better person. Or, rather, you have come here to learn more about prophecy and the events that are coming upon this earth. Well, put on your seatbelt, because you are about to have a bumpy ride; these studies may cause you to question long-held church traditions that might make you ponder and wonder...

Bible Courses - 70 Core Classes - 1 2 3 4 5 1 ... 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 6 Introduction Isaiah 28:10 Price Duration $0 13 Minutes Read More What is Truth? 1 John 4:16 Price Duration $0 9 Minutes Read More Father, Word, and Holy Ghost - Part 1 Matthew 13:45, 46 Price Duration $0 5 Minutes Read More God, the Father - Part 2 Proverbs 1:7 Price Duration $0 12 Minutes Read More Creation of Time - Part 3 Galatians 4:4 Price Duration $0 20 Minutes Read More The Son, Jesus' Name - Part 4 Psalms 138:2 Price Duration $0 9 Minutes Read More The Son, the Creator - Part 5 John 1:1-5 Price Duration $0 9 Minutes Read More The Son, who is Michael? - Part 6 Exodus 3:2 Price Duration $0 33 Minutes Read More The Son, the Angel of the Covenant - Part 7 Malachi 3:1-3 Price Duration $0 15 Minutes Read More Who the Holy Spirit is, Active Agent - Part 8 Hebrews 11:3 Price Duration $0 6 Minutes Read More Who the Holy Spirit is, the Breath - Part 9 Psalms 104:30 Price Duration $0 9 Minutes Read More Who the Holy Spirit is, Baptism - Part 10 Luke 2:40 Price Duration $0 9 Minutes Read More 1 2 3 4 5 1 ... 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 6 Download

Course Overview Welcome to the White Stone Online Bible Course! Our mission is to provide a comprehensive online learning experience that deepens your understanding of the Bible. Whether you're curious about the teachings of Jesus or seeking insights into biblical prophecy and current events, our seventy courses are designed to enlighten and empower. Join us on this spiritual journey to explore the riches of God's Word. White Stone Online Bible Course At White Stone Online Bible Course, we believe in the transformative power of Scripture. Founded on the principles of faith and community, our course offers a unique blend of biblical teaching and personal growth. We invite you to share in our journey—one that is filled with learning, exploration, and connection to the divine. Through engaging lessons and heartfelt stories, we aim to foster a deeper relationship with God and understanding of His Word. Join us as we navigate the life-changing truths of the Bible together. Start Here Call 1-832-786-9086 Email contact@whitestonemountain.com