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The Measure We are chosen for God’s possession. We are the whosoevers who believe in Jesus. Our chosenness is the result of God’s love. And God did not say that He loved a portion of the world, He said for He so loved the world, all nations, all lands. God loves all. So, it is faith that is the determination of those chosen. With that we must understand the term “all” in the promise and the patience of God. God works in a way that brings all of His people to Himself. God’s election of His people is sovereign and unconditional. We must have the faith to know that God foreknew those who would come to faith whom He would choose to come to divine election to salvation. God has chosen His from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. Election is rooted in God’s sovereign initiative, not in human responses. The word reveals that election is by grace alone apart from anything that we might achieve. Election is effectual in achieving God’s purposes thus ensuring perseverance and ultimately climaxes in glorification. Also, the divine election demands restoration of spiritual Israel and shows the calling of God to be irrevocable. Our faith is in this election in the assurance of the calling. This divine election should provoke humility and obedience and gracious love. Faith must remind us of our utter dependence on the grace of God for deliverance from sin and give us greater confidence in our witnessing to others the truths of God in the three angels messages. It is this faith that God knows that assures Him that our relationship with Christ is inseverable. Our faith is understood to be intensely personal and seen as extremely private in that God has given the measure to every man. "Every" refers to individuals without exception. This faith is superimposed in the lives of every person who receives the breath of God. But know that faith development is by the word of God. Faith makes distinct two expresions; the inward expression of the spirit working in the life and the outward expression of the spirit working by love for others. Faith’s attitude is shown by the degree of acceptance of every word of God. This attitude is based upon a studied learning of the meaning of the Hebrew texts as purposed, designed, and intended by every word. Faith to God’s chosen is so fundamental that none of us can live in peace for very long without it. It is so universal that when we move beneath the characters and principled patterns that express it, faith is recognizably the same phenomenon that we read in Hebrews, yet it is so infinitely varied that each person's faith is unique. It is the coming together in this uniqueness of individual faith that brings us to be one in “the Them” . Our faith is so focused as to its supreme trust in an exalted magnifical God, having a singular loyalty to the principle of being and to the source and center of all value and power, Jesus Christ, that we can see and know the ultimate environment of our life in Christ. Faith organizes the power of the knower’s mind by which we find order and shape our thoughts, words, and deeds. Faith deposits in our minds and hearts the worth of all to God in regard to self and others. Faith has this quality of mystery concerning Christ; it is perplexing, because we are internal to it, compassed by God as with a shield. shield Love provides an excellent overview of faith’s journey. It’s the underlying of our composition generated from our attachments and commitments to the supraordinate personality of Jesus. Our spiritual being is a function of faith. This is that regard which has power to unify our experiences of the life of Jesus. This is where we observe the endowing of all the relationships, contexts, and patterns of life, past, present, and future, with significance. Faith is the guiding principle that serves as both the source and the target of our spirituality. Devotion to our growth in spirituality can be seen as a measure of greater ability of understanding one's faith as shown through our consummatory behavior. It is possible for one to have faith but not do faith. It is the theological adherence to every truth in the word that renders the spirituality of a person as the indicator of the depth of faith. The acts of spirituality far outpace the ability to articulate faith. Faith grounds us as individuals, and our spirituality is to be characterized by constant change. In other words, there is not a threshold that one can or should attain with either faith or spirituality. Faith pleases God because this is the way that we are of Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, that through him we come to God. Hold this as the primary truth, that God is most influential upon us; and then believe that it is our business to come to Him. But there is only one way of coming to Him, and we must have faith to use that way. He that died and lives for ever saith, “I am the way. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” He that cometh to God must believe in God as he is revealed, and must come to God as God reveals the way of approach; and this is an exertion of faith. The faith of Christ is the only way through which we can reach beyond ourselves toward Him. This coming is essential and exclusive to the chosen of God. This is our response of obedience to His invitation. This is genuine faith, accepting His His invitation personal calling, having a centrality of focus on the true and living God alone. The words of our faith declare that God is. Genuinely coming to God says with our actions that “YOU ARE”, and we believe it even though we do not see Him with our fleshly eyes. To believe that God is, or that He exists, is only the entrance into a faith relationship with Him. This faith must grow to rest upon the fact that God not only exists, but He is everything that He says He was, is, and shall forever be. Only on this level of growth can our faith rest in the truth that God is whatever He says He is to us personally and that the vast resources of who He is has been promised and made available to all who come to Him through faith in the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. Faith not only embraces the fact that “GOD IS” in His existence, but “GOD IS” in His presence with us. Our faith must rest on the reality of His personal presence in us that He will never forsake us. Faith is so important that it is only by faith in Jesus Christ that we are saved from eternal separation from God and that we are enabled to live this life victoriously. God knows the thoughts He has toward us. He has an expected end for His chosen people. God has a beautiful plan that He wants us to fulfill, but that purpose He has for us is something that is so vital, so vast that we cannot do it without God. That's why God asks us to trust Him - so we can do all that we are to do through and in Him. He knows that without the power of the Holy Spirit guiding us and the work of Christ motivating us, we will never be able to live faith to its fullness. And to live faith is to always be overcoming. To live faith is the conviction that produces righteous works. It is being convinced of the confidence that God has in our absolute submission to His will. Living faith is the revelation of the word of God reflecting His living in us. Living faith motivates conduct in agreement with God's purpose. There is a time when the testing of faith will be by the word of God. The hearts will be exposed to see whether we truly believe every word of God or is there something that is valued more. God finds pleasure in seeing us choose Him above all. Standing in faith proves to be one of the most firm ways to express to God how much we love Him. There is no other way that we honor God best than by means of our faith. It is a calamity to be commended in error because of family or friendship for it may prevent our becoming really commendable. What reason can we offer for missing the end of our creation. We shall not escape trial, for even the highest qualities must be tested, yet we shall find great peace in being the means for good to God. Our faith will rebuke and stimulate; will convince and invite. Our faith will teach transgressors God’s way, and sinners shall be converted unto Him. God's way Without faith it is impossible to please God. The word does not say it is difficult, or so needful that without it success is barely possible; but, point- blank, the word declares it to be “impossible.” When the Holy Spirit says that a thing is impossible, it is so, in a very absolute sense. We cannot please God by any invention of our own, however clever, nor by any opinion or belief of our own, however ardent; since infallible inspiration declares that, “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Without faith how would we commune with God. Without the eye of faith we have no reasoning with God in those sacred truths concerning eternal things which only faith can perceive. Without faith, the man himself is not pleasing to God. Want of faith in one word of God will create variance on many points. The desire to come to God, the way to come to God, the power to come to God, the actual coming to God - these are all gifts of sovereign grace. Coming to God, however feebly gifts we come, and seeking Him, however much else we miss, must be well- pleasing in His sight; for it is the result of His own purpose and election which we are in Christ Jesus before the world began. But all this hangs upon faith. And faith says that what God would have me do I will do it in happily in fellowship with others, or alone by myself, as the case may be; but do it I must. Given the absolute reality of God being God and God's fullness being found in Christ, this is what faith has to be. This is the end of the argument. This is the bottom of the reasoning. We should say it like this: what pleases God is that our hearts and minds display God's being. That we display God's existence and His excellence. That we display how real He is and how rewarding He is. This is what pleases God, and this is faith. In Him we are assured of everything we hope for, convinced of all things to be seen. Though He is the great unseen God who exists absolutely and does not depend on us in the least, we have His substance as us in Jesus Christ. Faith is vulnerable. Be wary of the subtle encroachments of the world and sin and error. Vigilance and endurance are crucial for the soul. The spiritual nature of faith and the vitality of faith is rooted in what God is like, not what we are like. If we would have our faith be strong, we must have the mind of Christ. And God's existence and fullness will be wonderfully displayed in our life.

There is an interesting and convicting illustration of both a stronger form of mutual affection in association and accountability that passes the natural relationship. The carnal mind cannot learn this, and it is one of the hardest things for the worldly to comprehend. It is a spiritual truth spoken from inspiration that is intent upon bringing forth a more effective reasoning with God between two human relationships. Discernment can see the connections to life that this principle contains. Proverbs 27:17 Hear first the acknowledgment that the one becomes sharper with the presence of the other. The interaction of the two is worthwhile only when truth is loved and the desire to improve not self-centered. This interaction creates a spark that when blown upon by the Holy Spirit becomes a fire for God. It is God’s people questioning, encouraging, counseling, and challenging each other. We strengthen our faith and improve our characters. Even our attitude and outward expressions show a faithful countenance in God. Proverbs 27:5, 6 Hear how man’s best friend loved those he came to save presents truth in love. If we know this concept to be true, we are able to receive the counsel of one who has a godly appreciation of heart for our interest. Matthew 23:13-39 We can choose to rub off the hard edges. There are times when sharpening conversations can come across as harsh, mean, or judgmental. But if there is peace and love motivating the care between two, let others observe. Emotion must be vacant in our accountability. Iron sharpening iron requires a level of accountability or a personal inclination guided by the spirit of God to allow significant others to come close enough into our lives so as to see the vulnerability. The principle of accountability is our consent for another to come close in helpful and real conversations that grow out of growing and loving in Christlikeness for the truth is this…that both irons become better for the service of God from the presence of that which truly sharpens. Hebrews 4:12 God can and will use the “iron sharpening iron” process for His people to help us in our walk for Him. But, most certainly God will use the convicting power of His Holy Spirit and the word of God to rebuke us of the sinful and harmful practices that we hold on to in our lives. And the most needed tool for the sharpening is the Word of God. Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble. Imagine reading the bible as a matter-of-fact document in a neutral tone. Now, imagine reading the word of God with a subjective tone that describes approaches, judgments, or beliefs. The details are likely to include experiences, senses, thoughts, and comprehension. The subjective is personal, commanding a higher level of expression. Tone reflects both the attitude and the purpose of reasoning together. The word of God is given us that we might reason with Him. The word informs us of truth and convinces us of obedience. Spiritually mature followers of Christ hear truth and the tone carries the consideration and appreciation for God’s mindfulness in our growth. Words of truth and enthusiastic tones give shape and life to solidifying peace and compassion between the irons as character is merited. God never just points out weaknesses without providing a solution. God’s word will help us to go on living “in righteousness.” It is with the strongest of earnestness that we never dull the word of God with human passion. We are to exhort one another into a closer walk with our Lord. But our walk must stay us in the Word of God where our loving and gracious heavenly Father gives us truth strategies that we may be overcomers. As the body of Christ, the people of God, we remember that part of our job is to sharpen other brothers and sisters in Christ so that the flame in their hearts, put there by the Holy Spirit, continues to burn. And hopefully it will not be able to be contained in their lives. But in this emotionally centered world this is viewed as “hard sayings”. Fear replaces caring concern to speak truth into each others’ lives. Fear of fiery deliberation keeps those who say they are of God from being as though they are. Some are not familiar with the scenario whereby the Holy Spirit produces fire in the bones. SOP - Whenever the message of truth comes home to souls with special power, Satan stirs up his agents to start a dispute over some minor question. Thus he seeks to attract attention from the real issue. Whenever a good work is begun, there are cavilers ready to enter into dispute over forms or technicalities, to draw minds away from the living realities. When it appears that God is about to work in a special manner for His people, let them not be enticed into a controversy that will work only ruin of souls. The questions that most concern us are, Do I believe with saving faith on the Son of God? Is my life in harmony with the divine law? “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life.” “And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.” John 3:36; 1 John 2:3. {DA 396.3} Let’s examine further depths of querying points affecting God’s wisdom of iron sharpening iron. Please note how many irons are mentioned. Right and wrong can be debated. Left and right can be reversed. Yea and nay are discernible. Black and white are shades. Divine timing…is it right or wrong to take a life, is left and right the same in every direction, can yea and nay answer the same question, can black be white in monochrome? Divine timing is a determinant for righteousness. Everything good happens in divine timing. It is before human awareness. It is when human injection or non- spiritual influence is favored. When divine timing is trusted and believed it can make a huge difference. It takes spiritual practice to trust more in divine timing than in what you think or feel. Because what you think or feel is of you. There is always a lesson that can be learned from everything. And to do the right thing at the wrong time may cause a stumbling or even a complete fall. God does not let any thing happen that does not first go through Him. Not through “a you”, but Him. There are many who think when things are not going as they think they should interfere. Their perception may be 100% on, but their timing may not allow the sharpening to take place. Know the signs of divine timing. Patience allows things to come to fruition. Now understand, please do not use divine timing for spiritual bypassing. If you use any reference to you as cause for your injection then you divert the time. If you are not an iron…wait on the Lord. Any action taken must be inspired so as to be void of private interpretation. Know that in the iron sharpening the iron is needed force and heat. And certainly know that it is the refiner that wields the force and the spirit the heat. Know that the refiner uses one as the hammer to smooth out the rough texture of resistance of the other. The only way to sharpen an iron is to use an iron with a different edge or texture, and that is an important point. Although believers often emphasize the “like iron” part of this verse as meaning two similarly strong believers, this verse does not promote uniformity. The iron that sharpens iron must be wielded by the same refiner yet different in function. Desire that God encourages you to surround yourself with strong believers who can sharpen you, as well as those who are different enough to shape you by means of friction. That is to say, we need friends whose wisdom, whose willingness to say difficult things, or whose different perspectives will provide the grit with which God can remove dull edges. This may mean exposing ourselves to differing manner of voices. Everyone in the camp can’t some cannot see what motivates the affection coming from other tents. In some cases it may take a “tribe”. Be patient, allow the process to do its work. Let God choose how much friction is needed to do that in my life that I will be a “tool” that is fit for His use. If all iron is alike wherein is the sharpening made possible? Surrounding ourselves with godly people who serve in our lives both as encouragers and correctors is a good thing. They may be used to sharpen our lives by faithfully helping us see some of the rough areas that are not yet as well-honed as God wants them to be. When we have one or more of these people in our life, we ought to thank God that He has seen fit to bring them to us to help sharpen us into tools that fit for God’s purposes. May we be as strong as iron in our faith and yet different enough to be a sanctifying friend in the life. May we be of a mutual action giving advantage to one another. May our functioning be as a two-edged sword for God.

There is a most dreary subject and a mournful theme approaching. It is referred to as the last days. As great as were the woes of our Redeemer, with sacred patience he endured and as severe will be our last days, we must enter agonizingly into our expiring suffering with this hope; that God will bring us through our Gethsemane experience. Our sorrow will birth in travail and sow in tears. But, oh how the double reflection of our sorrow will know the recompense and the fellowship in its finishing. Sorrow Our sorrowing will be expressed very emphatically in our peculiarity. A bitter cup is forthcoming. And in the singularly harmony of our character there will be one quality predominated…our faith. Excessive weight will press upon our spirit. We will be warriors in black armor. Search yourself…what burdens have you to bear? The subject of our sorrows will be our Jesus and he will be the comfort in the tossing that compasses us. No greater tribute can be shown for God than to accept affliction for His glory. In all our attitudes in knowing the consolation of Jesus, we will be a people of sorrow valuing reproach more than pleasure. We will walk wearily in the fullness of our woes as our characters emit the sweetest perfume, for there is no better balm, no surer remedy than the life that bled on that tree. In Christ our griefs are light that brighten the shadow of death. For in our mourning we are in communion with him who has known affliction. We will not stray but will keep our sorrow close, knowing there is everything important in it. We are the last to keep the Sabbath holy in time. Angels will camp around us as men hide their faces in contempt. We are a mystery of godliness…some better thing. Our place of highness in the heaven is assured as we humblingly take our place as the lowliest of the least. We remember Jesus Christ, the real and substantial God. We must have a sorrow that is absent from sin differing in no respect from that of our human Savior save that he was never defiled by sin. There is no greater sorrow than when there is no admixture of sin. If our sorrowing is of God, then sin must become the source of wretchedness to us. Jesus was made in our likeness that we may regard his humanity in its perfectness and think on him in that aspect honoring him in our sorrow. This condescending participation in our nature brings our Jesus very near to us in relationship and this matchless man, suffering in sorrow, and sorrowing in suffering, found joy in God’s redemption of us. Our eyes are wet with tears of sorrow, tears of pity, tears of thankfulness as we gaze into that deep gash in his side. That wound shows us his heart for us and how he was so excited with compassion in making amends for us with his Father, our Father. I know in our sorrow we tremble, and in our mourning we abound in weakness, but in this we touch his sympathy for we are in his presence and we can ask for no greater place to be. We are always beneath his eye. And as the Father looked upon him, the Father was also looking upon us. Don’t look at self, look at the cross. Our groaning is not in vain, neither will it be long. Our sorrow is going to rack us in much pang. We will experience a sufficient hell as long as we are among the wicked. Their shameful deeds of vice seize us with dismay today. But know that you are not alone; Jesus is a fellow- feeling who in every season comforts beyond mortal endurance. In our sorrow we know his sorrow was greater. In our grieving we know his grief was surpassing. In our repining we know he fainted not. Jesus could see sin where we cannot see it and feel its heinousness as we cannot feel it. In this last day, assuredly, we can bear poverty, slander, contempt, bodily pain, sorrow or death itself, because Jesus Christ our Lord has borne it. By his humiliation it shall become pleasure to sorrow for his sake. For this cause, we surrender our life to Christ. He enables us to bear our sorrows. Our sorrow deepens even further with the painful sensitiveness of the evil of sin, for sin deserves sorrow, as we graciously offer tenderness towards the sorrows of others. In this last day the descending spirit of the people will show us as women and men most miserable. Our sorrow will not be a common thing as we are moved to sympathy in love for others in grief who are saddened by the effects of sin. Many, many will forsake us, but our sorrow will not leave us till our Lord comes. Be ready! Our sorrow grows as we actively struggle to obey. Our sorrow grows as we passively sit still and cry not. Our sorrow grows as we weep in memory the times we failed to witness for God. Our bitterest sorrow will be connected with the work. We are sent of God to announce His love and His truth and the people will reject this offered advantage. We will teach and hearts will be hardened…we sorrow. We will do God’s good and they will hate us…we sorrow. We will sacrifice for them and they will transact our demise…we sorrow. We see the midnight of trouble and prepare for the winepress; crowning sorrow in this life. Lastly we say, here are we, servants to the man of sorrows having not just hurt, but a profound sadness because the world rejoices. John 16:20 The prophecy of approaching sorrow is sure, the word about a subsequent joy is even more certain. Out of the sorrow of our souls we will be satisfied.

You have to have reasoning faith. And then even greater faith to encourage others to accept this truth that they may be free. Justification makes us free from the guilt of sin. Sanctification makes us free from the bondage of corruption. Reasoning makes us free from invalid assumptions. Free from spiritual enemies. Free from prejudices, mistakes, and false notions, which entangle the soul. Free to be restored to the government of God. The mind, by admitting the truth of Christ in the light and power, is vastly enlarged, and has scope and compass given it, is greatly elevated and raised above things of sense, and never acts with so true a liberty as when it acts with truth acquired through reasoning faith with every word of God. Those who accept every truth of God have the freest reasonings that are guided by faith, and those are people of free thought, whose thoughts are captivated and brought into obedience to Christ. Reasoning faith preserves truth! the Truth Consider the wisdom afforded by viewing all things by faith. It affects how we interact with others. It shapes our understanding of the past, the present, and tomorrow. We reason in our faith to make full commitment to God, trusting wholeheartedly to every experience He places us in. We become united with His chosen because of this committed faith in the truth. This union is a physical substance that serves as evidence of the ultimately unverifiable. By faith we are disposed to ascend in allegiance to the Lord and to His cause and purpose. And the wonderful aspect of such a proposition is this…this faith we can have in others. Our experiences will be in physical reality and spiritual reality. Where there is difference of opinion or even controversy, the core foundational faith in the word of God will remove all arbitrariness. Take a moment to reason with this truth. There is this collection of sixty-six separate writings by a variety of authors upon which a determined people place reasoned faith…why?...because they believe in God and know that this collection is the revealed word of God for mankind. It records the dealings of God with humanity and the reactions, the responses of humanity to the revelation received. Here is what gives faith its power – it is the work of our reasoning and will, but also with the intervention of the Holy Spirit specifically granted, supported, and gratuitously offered by God. God expects us to reason with, to investigate, to study with intense scrutiny and debate every word. The problem with most is that they know not how to reason with God. For certain we hear the words written, but God ain’t through talking yet. He has more of Himself to reveal to us. The Holy Spirit has much to say that He hears from God. God gave counsel to a woman messenger. He has stars who are commanded to bring light to the world. Our faith is heavily impacted by written words. God actually specifically asks people throughout scripture to write things down. We move from truth discovery writing things by hand... through writing. There's a fascinating connection between our brains and written words. Writing things by hand actually boosts our memory. Words written in agreement with scripture, instruct and awaken and delight and transform people into obedient worshipers of Christ. Writing must become an instrument in the hand and under the power of the Holy Spirit. It's like God thought of this stuff before making us. The word of God engages both faith and reason. Every other aspect of our life on earth is different from our interaction with the Divine. When we come to reason with God we are connecting with a concept that we were purposed to bring pleasure to. God-given light of reason to our minds is to establish truth that is free from internal contradictions. Reasoning faith renders the regular avenues of intellectual attainment and marginal things that may dominate the mind as pale in comparison to the pursuit of divine revelation. God’s invitation to reason is for proclamation of truth which may be independent of what any of us think. Yet, with reasoning faith, appropriate response is instructed by the Holy Spirit. When we come to understand this reasoning faith we come to God not attempting to penetrate His height, for in no way can our understanding compare. We come by faith seeking to understand to the extent He purposes in His truth. And His truth, we both believe, and love. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. {Isaiah 1:18} Reasoning faith deepens our experience, our learning, our knowledge, when presented with situations in that we are able to draw upon foundational principles that intertwine both in a beneficial way. Some knowledge can only be arrived at by reason, and some only by faith. We must understand the balance. Do you need a reason to believe in God or do you know by faith that He is God? Reason makes certain assumptions; faith is coherent with presentiment. What comes after is supported by what has come before. Reasoning faith is a condition for arriving at a fully comprehensive, coherent, consistent, and true principle. There is an important relationship between reason and faith. Neither can exist separate from one another. God says come to reason and with that invitation must be faith in God. Reasoning faith shores up our strength of testimony. Faith informed by external belief and reasonable evidence is powerful. Jesus speaks of empowered faith when he says, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” Reason and faith have each been considered to be sources of justification for conscientious belief. Reason properly employed and faith properly understood, will never produce contradictory or competing claims. God’s true people possess a domain of thought rightly governed by faith, asserting that all meaningful and truthful statements and ideas are accessible to thorough examination by reasoning. How powerful becomes the mind when reasoning faith is the source of development for every thought. Faith and reason are both sources from the authority of God upon which beliefs can rest. Reason intellectual, moral, visual, or spiritual is understood as the principles for a structured procedure of inquiry, whether intellectual, moral, visual, or spiritual. Faith involves a stance toward an assertion that is not, at least presently, demonstrable by occasion. So, faith is a kind of attitude of trust or assent. As such, it is ordinarily understood to involve an act of will or a commitment on the part of the believer. Faith involves a belief that makes either an implicit or explicit reference to a transcendent source. The basis for a person’s faith usually is understood to come from the authority of revelation. And revelation is either direct or by infusion based on the testimony of an other. Reasoning faith comes from the fact that the revelation or set of revelations on which most beliefs are based, is usually described and interpreted in sacred pronouncements, either in an oral principle or undisputed writings, backed by divine authority. God tells us to reason. We are to have a good reason for what we believe, and we are to be ready always to share that testimony with other people. So, we attempt to show unbelievers that our belief in the scriptures is reasonable, justified, and logically and spiritually sound. But what of those who read the words and are not able to understand? Are they to live by reason or by faith? Are they supposed to rely upon their intellect, drawing rational conclusions, rejecting those things that don’t make sense? Or are they to accept the teachings of scripture without regard to logic and reason, even if it does not make any sense? If God says it, that’s it! Faith is not believing what you don’t know. Faith is strongly warranted confidence. It is not wishful thinking. It’s a confident expectation: the kind of confidence we have through reasoning with the truths of scripture. Biblical faith is the act of believing in something unseen for which we do have a good reason. Every word that God has ever spoken has been demonstrated. Reason is a means given us that allows us to draw conclusions and inferences from other information, such as the information God has given us in His Word. We reason from the principles of God’s word. You believe you are saved by faith…what’s your reason? In reasoning faith our unquestionable starting point must be with God’s word and not what we think. In order to reason about anything we must have faith that there are laws of common sense which correctly prescribe the correct chain of reasoning chain of reasoning. Since laws of logic cannot be observed with the senses, our confidence in them is a type of faith. Laws are an expression of the self- consistent nature of God. We should not conclude from this that we can think exactly as God thinks; after all, He is infinite and we are finite, He knows all things, and we must learn of things. Nonetheless, we are able to line up our thinking with God’s nature and God’s word. That is why we have the Holy Spirit. That we do not distort the truth. The bible makes sense. And that is a good reason for our faith. We study the bible to show ourselves approved of God. There is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all our reasoning power comes. We could not be right and He wrong any more than the sky could fall. When any argue against Him they are arguing against the very power that makes them able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch cutting off the branch you are sitting on you are sitting on. Faith holds on to things our reason has accepted as truth, in spite of our lack of understanding. The battle is between faith and reason on one side; and emotion and opinion on the other. Faith comes before reason and then reason allows faith to grow. Faith enables a believer to understand further truths that could not be discovered through reason alone. Both faith and reason lead us to the one Truth who is God. Reasoning faith is the extension of spiritual dialogue. God’s people commit to dialogue to show the worth of revelation. All expressions of truth as manifested in the word of God are to foster authentic, good, and mutual enhancement in the unity of the faith. The united endeavor of reasoning faith will enable people to come to the full measure of their humanity created in the image and likeness of God, renewed even more marvelously, after sin, in Christ, and called and purposed to shine forth in the light of the Spirit. God’s people are challenged to be a community whose members discover truth by ardent development of faith and by rigorous exercise of reason. In this challenge important questions are considered. And so God counsels us to plead together, putting Him in remembrance that we may be justified. Christ is looking for faith. His Father wants us to reason with Him! When we give Him sound, spiritual reasons for our requests, He can gauge very accurately our growth in grace, knowledge, and faith. He can see if we are still carnal and self-centered, or if we are showing love for our brethren. Let us reason faithfully with God according to His will.

God made our minds for knowledge & understanding God made us for Himself. He made our minds for gaining knowledge and understanding that we might avoid ignorance. Faith is a powerful force in the life of the believer. It is an experienced and mysterious inclination of the mind. Where faith touches the behavior of the adherent, though the effects are profound, it is difficult to articulate. Now know this by reasoning faith. All things that are possible and all things that are impossible have been determined by counsel. And in that truth, nothing of God can change. Every change that occurs is determined and the change is for our reasoning that our faith may be that of Christ Jesus. This is the priceless truth of the sovereignty of God. From the beginning we not import something that does not come from the word of God. This matter is far too serious, and touches on so many painful realities, that we dare not trust ourselves here to come up with truth without being told by God Himself. God says “I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me.” So the issue in this writing is the uniqueness of God among all the beings of the ever creation. He is the highest all by Himself. No one is like Him. The issue is what it means to be God. When something is happening, or something is being said or thought, and God responds, “I am God!”, the point He is making is this: you’re acting like you don’t know what it means for me to be God. Reasoning faith is that of God. It’s at the heart of His God-ness. It is He who says, “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure”. God knows what these doings will be, long before they are done. All of our reasoning faith must be in His foreknowledge. And the way He declares His foreknowledge is by declaring His fore-counsel and His fore- purposing. Which means that the reason God knows there will be a change in anything is because He plans the change and accomplishes it. He purposes them and He performs them and He takes responsibility. By the sovereignty of God: God has the rightful authority, the freedom, the wisdom, and the power to bring about everything that He intends to happen. And God purposes it therefore, everything He intends to come about, does come about. Which means, God plans and governs all things. When God says “I change not”, that which is a change is His determined purpose already known. Even a repenting of what He thought to do is not a change to Him. But it is the change purposed for us to know Him better by faith as we reason with His purpose for doing it. Now, if that seems too complicated, so that you don’t think I am expressing a private opinion of my own, search and reason with other scripture purporting change to see if they were determined in counsel. You ready?…faith in a God who says He changes not where the word says He is a Spirit and yet a body of flesh was prepared Him. Now you have to have a consecrated attitude, divine giftedness, a humble mindset, to accept this strongly transformative miracle. It is by reasoning that God affirms my faith. I believe that God, from all eternity, in order to display the full extent of His glory for the eternal and ever- increasing satisfaction of all who love Him, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His will, freely and unchangeably ordain and foreknow whatever comes to pass. I believe that God upholds and governs all things — from galaxies to subatomic particles, from the forces of nature to the movements politicians of nations, and from the public plans of politicians to the secret acts of solitary persons — all in accord with His eternal, all-wise purposes to glorify Himself, yet in such a way that He never compromises truth, nor ever condemns a person unjustly; but that His ordaining and governing all things is compatible with the moral accountability of all persons created in His image. I believe that God’s election is an unconditional act of free grace which was given through His Son Christ Jesus before the world began. By this act God chose, before the foundation of the world, those who would be delivered from bondage to sin and brought to repentance and saving faith in His Son Christ Jesus. These are His called to election by and for His purpose. As we reason, we may be overwhelmed at the extent of God’s sovereignty because it is higher than our understanding. But by faith we will praise His power and grace, and bow with glad submission to the absolute will of God. We will see in the sovereignty of God our only hope for life in our deadness, our only hope for answers to our prayers, our only hope for success in our personal witness, our only hope for meaning in our suffering. And we will know insistantly that there is a better hope. God has given us a will. How we use it makes our eternal difference. The divine providence orders and directs those things which to us are perfectly casual and unexpected. Nothing comes to pass by chance, nor is an event determined by a blind fortune, but every thing by the will and counsel of God. What we have, neither eye nor hand in God is intimately concerned in and with. Think about when we make solemn appeals to God for the deciding of a matter of the moment which could not otherwise be at all, or not so well decided, God must be eyed in it, by prayer, that it may be disposed rightly and by consenting, and accepting in it when it is arranged, being satisfied that the hand of God is in it, and that hand directed by His infinite wisdom. All the disposals of providence concerning our affairs we must look upon to be the directing of our lot, the determining of what we referred to God, and we must be reconciled to them accordingly. There are no events so small that God does not rule for His purposes. Let there be no man-exalting illusion as though we are the decisive cause for a purpose. God removes and sets up kings God alone will have that supreme role. He changes times and seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings; He changes events as they were determined to be changed for purpose. And for our understanding of His purposes He calls us to come to reason with Him, and for this reason, God gifted us with the measure of faith. I pray that we know this: we will never be sovereign, but we will be governed. When the nations came to do their absolute worst, namely the murder of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, they had not slipped out of God’s control, but were doing His sweetest bidding at their worst moment. The worst sin that ever happened was in God’s determined purposed plan, and by that sin, sin died. There may have been a thousand horrible things in our life. But if today we are moved to treasure Christ as our Lord and Savior, we can write over every one of those horrors the words “what was thought evil against me; God meant it unto good” . Our reasoning faith is real. We stand in awe of the sovereign authority and freedom and wisdom and power of God. We never trifle with life as though it were a small or light affair. We know we are not our own. We are calm in these days of great upheaval because faith belongs to God, and by reason of His love He has given us of this faith.

There is no salvation, no eternal life, without obedience! Life was brought to light through obedience to the faith. Understand what obedience to the faith is. The faith of Christ is the law of trusting fully in what he has done. He is the end of the law. Obedience to the law prepares us to receive the promises by faith in Jesus Christ. Without it, no sanctification can take place, for we, through the Spirit, eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. Righteousness brings hope, but it is impossible to be righteous in any other way than through obedience to the faith, because the righteous shall live by faith. In Christ we receive both grace and truth, which God is able to give because by faith, we are crucified with Christ and we live as Christ lives in us. The faith of Christ is revealed to us in our human spirit and consciousness. The faith of Christ has its roots in God Himself. It is in perfect harmony with God’s reasoning, purpose, and His plans. And it is according to this faith that we are confident of God’s performance of work in us. We must believe and obey what the Spirit speaks to us and convicts us of in our inner being and in our conscience. This is what the bible calls obedience to the faith. God tells us there is this revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began. That mystery is the faith in the gospel, in the word. This thing has its roots in eternity before sin began. This is why we are told that faith comes by roots hearing and hearing by the word of God. Such a faith gives us a greater sense of strength and firmness about the word: its roots go back into eternity in the mind of God. The mystery made known through the prophetic writings in the old testament are revealed and explained in the new testament. And hearing this word prepares God’s people for the coming of Jesus. All designed to produce obedience of faith. The bible says we are justified by faith. We have peace with God through Jesus. This is a reality actually. In the court of God we are either justified or condemned. If He justifies us, it means that He has found in our favor and declared us to be just. We are found not guilty. Surprise! The indictment against all of us is that we are unrighteous. “None is righteous, no not one”. The indictment is true. The omniscient judge considers all factors and declares that we are not guilty as charged, but are in fact righteous, though everybody in the court knows that in our behavior and our attitudes we are sinners. How can this be? How can God justify the ungodly and be a just judge? God knows that we trust in Jesus alone as the ground and basis of our justification, not in anything we are, or do, or are helped to do, by God. Through this faith in Jesus alone, we are united to Christ so that we are in him. No condemnation. The key thing: we the key thing are in Christ Jesus. In Christ we are justified. Through faith we are united to Christ, and united to Christ we are justified. And being found in Christ, in the righteousness of Christ, or the obedience of Christ, or the righteousness of God in Christ, his righteousness is imputed to us. It is counted as ours. In other words, when God declares that we are righteous, there is a real basis for it in the righteousness of Christ. It’s not a pretense. It’s one thing to be forgiven when we are unrighteous. It is glorious and costly. It cost God the life of His Son. But it is another thing — an even more amazing thing — for God to say that the unrighteous are righteous. If forgiving the unrighteous is astonishing, calling the unrighteous righteous is gloriously divine. This is how grace can reign in us. This is what brings us closer to obedience to the faith. But our obedience is not the ground or the basis of our justification. Faith alone unites us to Christ, and Christ alone is the ground of our justification. Our obedience is the fruit of that faith. The faith that justifies is the kind of faith that, by the Holy Spirit, changes us. Thoughts, affections, and behaviors change. A new mind of obedience grows. And the reality of justifying faith is made manifest. Faith goes beyond what we can perceive with our physical senses, so it does not work by the rules of science. Faith allows us to believe that the invisible God can do what is physically impossible. In that sense, faith is built and grows on a spiritual plane, not a scientific one. That does not mean that observation is not a part of what the powerful Creator does. In fact, there is no contradiction or conflict between godly faith and true science. Since God Science is the study of God's creation is the Creator of all things, science is simply the study of His creation. We understand that the initial seed of faith is a gift of God and faith is the fruit that comes from using God’s Holy Spirit. And so, Jesus tells us to believe the gospel. But please do not think that our belief is some sort of achievement or virtue. That’s an expression of human pride. Obedience of faith is for the sake of Jesus’ name as it brings glory to God. Faith is the main thing and obedience is the consequence of faith. But faith and obedience are distinct. The bible says our faith is spoken of throughout the whole world and our obedience is come abroad unto all men. Everything about our faith and our obedience is entirely by what Jesus did for us. We lay our righteousness on the ground before him as filthy rags in order to come to him as his subjects so that we can benefit from the merits of his obedience. Ongoing obedience is the outworking of our salvation. It is not a subsequent thing; it is faith in its concrete expression. The obedience of faith is a trusting submission to Jesus the Lord, bowing the knee to him at the start and going on bowing the knee to him thereafter. The faith that God looks for in His people is the faith that exceeds the mental assent to the truthfulness of who Jesus is and what He did for us on the cross. Obedience comes from faith, and faith is made the substance of the truth and the evidence of the beauty and worth of Jesus in the gospel. Therefore, faith is the root of all Christ-exalting obedience, not just the fruit. Faith demands commitment at the level of our heart, but obedience demands commitment at the level of our doings. Faith requires us to have a deep conviction that God will keep His promises and do what He says He will do. Faith is greater than obedience. Genuine faith can only be demonstrated by obedient action. If we truly trust in God and His Word and promises, then we will fully obey Him. Anyone can say they have faith, but the people who actually live by faith will act in obedience to God no matter where God leads them. The faith which pleases God, is an obedient faith. “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven”—this contains a warning all need to WARNING! ponder. The bible stresses man’s faith is unto salvation. The watchword of the Reformation was, “the just shall live by his faith.” But all of this recognizes that the expression of faith by the mouth must be joined with obedience to the divine command. There are individuals who stoutly affirm their belief in the bible “from cover to cover,” but whose “faith” is lettered, not worded, and this spiritually belies the lives they live. There is this principle we find in the scriptures, that profession of faith must be associated with obedience of mind and will. We only too often demand of God that we see the ending before we obey. Obedient faith trusts in God to bring about the consequences according to His purpose. We trust the One who gives the call, confident that He would not lead us astray. Abraham was told to go…he went. This same Abraham was later confronted with a greater crisis. God had given him a son in his old age. The covenant promises were wrapped up in the boy, and the father’s love for this child was overwhelming. But one day God told him to take the boy and go to a distant mountain, there to offer him as a sacrifice. a distant mountain “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest”—with every word there was a deeper thrust into Abraham’s heart. Surely in circumstances such as this he would have been justified in temporizing, in asking questions, in offering an alternative. None of this took place. Abraham obeyed without question, leaving early the next morning on his sad pilgrimage. But coupled with his forthright obedience there was also a sublime faith. “God will provide,” he told the questioning boy. Nevertheless, how sorely was that faith tested and how marvelous the will to obey. The altar was prepared, the son bound, the knife raised. As far as God was concerned, Abraham did offer up his son, and because of that faith, coupled with unswerving obedience, God renewed his covenant promises -“for I know that thou fearest God”. Sin came into the world because of disobedience and continues today, causing world chaos and our own personal predicaments. God has commanded us to love one another, but we disobey Him. He has commanded us as individual believers, to go into all the world and teach the gospel, but this is a secondary interest, not a consuming one, with most of us. At the personal level we believers often live in disobedience to God’s specific calls on us. We rationalize His commands and equivocate in our reactions to them so that with our lips we draw near, but in our hearts...we are far from Him. There are times when God does demand of us blind obedience, when our faith should impel us to courses of action the end result of which we cannot foresee; but where there is faith combined with obedience there is also rich blessing. The entire question of obedience is closely coupled with our prayer lives. Only too often we pray for guidance with the mental reservation that if we like the prospects we will go ahead. What a travesty on true faith! We cannot fool God. He knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts. He knows those reservations and often refuses to hear because we are actually putting Him to a test of our own devising. Never forget, the prayer of faith includes a willingness to obey, and this is not always easy. It is a lesson hard to learn but one we must not evade. Even our Lord, we are told, divested himself of his inherent rights as the Son and “learned obedience by the things which he suffered”. God does not exact obedience as a tyrant; He calls for it as an evidence of the reality of our faith. On the one hand, this is His rightful due; on the other, it is a demonstration for all to see that our faith is in the assurance of promises. Unquestionably God expects of us a faith which believes and an obedience which complies without question.

Let me emphatically emphasize the tone set in this writing. The faith we must have is purposed for the elimination of the enemy. It must be of a holy expectancy; it must be deaf to doubt; it must be deaf to discouragment; it must be blind to impossibility; it knows nothing, but triumph in God. The power of faith can make something completely impossible, possible. Faith is the spiritual weapon God gives the violent to display spiritual agressiveness in bringing down every stronghold of unbelief and every demonic obstacle in its path. As the Lord is our strength, and as the Lord is a man of war, as His election, we are to be always in a readiness to revenge all disobedience. God is preparing a people for the kingdom of heaven. Overcoming sin will not be a peaceful venture. The faithful who obtained a good report strove for a place in the kingdom. It is not a breach of truth that we will bring many to holiness. But we must have strength, and vigor, and earnestness of desire and endeavor, as those who follow Christ’s ministry. By faith we must strive to deny self, to frame our temper, to alter our mind…there are hard sufferings to be undergone. We must run, and wrestle, and fight, and be in an agony   to Fight! make our calling and election sure. Our faith must be of such a holy claim that it thrust us into the purposes of God. It is going to take a spiritual force to stand against the enemy and advance the truths of God into the darkness of this world to reach the ones desiring to know Jesus. We cannot relent, else souls will be lost. It takes strong and faithful ones to forcefully push past their flesh, to forcefully push into the darkness with the light of God, to forcefully push into the spirit realm through prayer and fasting, worship, and the Word of God. We must pray more, love greater, and be wiser. We are to speak faith words, show prophetic actions under the influence of the Holy Spirit. We are fighting for the kingdom of God. We need the discernment of the Holy Spirit. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but that is what it will look like on the surface. Let us not fall into the trap of seeing it through natural eyes. We know how to see through our spiritual eyes and fight a spiritual battle with spiritual weapons. We win, because, as Jesus said, “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the   violent take it by force.” God gives us the faith to withstand the world’s violence. Our faith is not some religious theory. It is a dominant force and not a dormant force . Faith is the bond of a living union with Jesus Christ, and so the obedience of faith arises out of union with Him. The life that we live is by faith in the Son of God. Unquestioning obedience to the principles and commandments of God is a matter of trust. Our faith must be more than a moment, even more than just a decision…our faith must be life. We have some tight places to go before the Lord is through with this last day people and the world in this final moment of time. Whatever God requires is right, though we may not know the reason until His determined time. The obedience of faith is very different from the obedience of works. The obedience of works is an effort that we find within ourselves. If we treat obedience as something we do first and then all joy in Jesus follows, we will have turned obedience into a work of the law, or a legal external performance that has in it no Christ-exalting worth and therefore will not result in true enjoyment of Jesus. But the obedience of faith arises from our living bond with Christ. Obedience of faith is about pursuing in the power of Christ now; its an obedience that will be complete by the grace of Christ. Obedience comes from faith, and faith is a seeing and savoring of the truth and worth of Jesus. For the child of God, obedience is not an option. It is a command, and when we are confronted with a command, we have two choices: to obey, or to disobey. There is no third choice. Faith is that conquering force by which we overcome. Our faith is to be authoritative and assertive. Reasoning in truth is with authority, having no fear because we speak knowing that we are backed by the power in Jesus Christ. Faith is the factor of our life. Faith believes that God exists and that He is a Reward rewarder. Now ponder this for a moment as we come to know our God more deeply. There is something about the nature of God’s existence and how He rewards us with manifestations of His presence that makes this obvious. It does not need an argument. It belongs to the very essence of what it means to be God that God should be pleased by these two things. God exists absolutely. He did not come into being and will never go out of being. He absolutely is. Therefore, He is pleased when this absolute existence is known and embraced. He is pleased when what He is, is reflected in our lives. We were created for God’s pleasure, and without faith it is impossible to please God. Only with faith will our obedience be pleasing to God. The nature of faith and the vitality of faith is rooted in what God is like. The more we know what God is like, the more conformed to His greatness will be our faith. We will be more and more assured of things hoped for and more and more convinced of things unseen. And God's existence and fullness will be wonderfully displayed in our life. Faith can be measured through obedience. Obedience is the visible expression of invisible faith . Obedient faith is necessary to keep God’s commandments fully. Doing God’s will is obedience. No matter how long Sunday has been observed, it is a distorted doctrine which is not found in the bible. Obedient faith rejects this and keeps the Sabbath. This is the duty of those who obey God’s word. Faith and obedience are inseparable, and faith can be proven through obedience. If a man is confident in his faith, he obeys God’s word. Obedience…what a blessing it would be if we were all exercised to it by the Holy Spirit! Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. {James 2:18} How fully should we be restored if we were perfect in it! If all the world would obey the Lord, what a heaven on earth there would be! Perfect obedience to God would mean love among men, justice to all classes, and peace in every land. Our will brings disbelief, envy, malice, war; but the Lord's will would bring us love, joy, rest, harmony. Obedience…let us pray for it for ourselves and others! God’s people mourn disobedience with many tears and sighs. Faith is the fountain, the foundation, and the fosterer of obedience. Men obey not God till they believe him. We teach faith in order that men may be brought to obedience. To disbelieve is to disobey. One of the first signs of practical obedience is found in the obedience of the mind, the reasoning, the understanding, and the heart; and this is expressed in believing the word of Christ, trusting to his work, and resting in his salvation. Faith is the morning star of obedience. If we would work the work of God, we must believe on Jesus Christ whom He hath sent. The attainment of perfect obedience would mean salvation. We regard sanctification, or perfect obedience, as the great design for which the Savior died. It is for this that we are chosen: we are "elect unto holiness." We know nothing of election to continue in sin. It is for this that we have been called. Obedience is the grand object of the work of grace in the hearts of the chosen and called: being conformed to the likeness of the Son of God, with whom the Father is well pleased. The obedience of faith springs from a principle within, and not from heart's warmest passion compulsion without. It is sustained by the mind's soberest reasoning and the heart's warmest passion. We reason with ourself that we ought to obey our Redeemer, our Father, our God; and, at the same time, the love of Christ constrains us so to do, and so what argument suggests, affection performs. A sense of great obligation, an apprehension of the fitness of obedience, and spiritual renewal of heart, work an obedience which becomes essential to the sanctified soul. Hence, it is not relaxed in the time of temptation, nor destroyed in the hour of sufferings. Life has no trial which can turn the gracious soul from its passion for obedience; and death itself cannot but enable it to render an obedience which shall be as peaceful as it will be complete. We must seek after stronger faith that we may render true obedience. That is the product of our faith. Obedience, such as God can accept, is wrought in us by the Spirit of the Lord, through our believing in the truth, and love, and grace of our God in Christ Jesus. The greater the faith, the greater the manifestation of obedience. There is the kind of faith which produces obedience; and there is the kind of obedience which faith produces; and then there is the kind of life which comes out of this faith and performs. obedience. When we have faith in God then our belief in His sovereignty establishes His right to command obedience. This loyalty of our mind is based on faith, and is a chief prompter to obedience. Cultivate always this cultivate always this sentiment sentiment. God is not such a one as ourselves. So, it is by faith that we are allowed to accommodate a holy familiarity with the rightness of all that God says and do. This, to us, is the kind of faith which shows obedience is lord of the understanding. We believe in God beyond all our belief in anything else, and everything else. Let truth be tinctured with the glory of God, and we value it beyond worth; but if God and eternity be not there, we will leave these trifles to those who choose them. We must have a paramount faith in God, or else the will of God will not be a paramount law to us. Obedience is for the present tense: it must be prompt, or it is nothing. Providence is God's business, obedience is ours. What comes out of our life's course must remain with the Lord; to obey is our sole concern. Obedient faith is the way to eternal life…it is eternal life revealing itself. There is no salvation, no eternal life, without obedience! Life was brought to light through obedience to the faith. Understand what obedience to the faith is. The faith of Christ is the law of trusting fully in what he has done. He is the end of the law. Obedience to the law prepares us to receive the promises by faith in Jesus Christ. Without it, no sanctification can take place, for we, through the Spirit, eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. Righteousness brings hope, but it is impossible to be righteous in any other way than through obedience to the faith, because the righteous shall live by faith. In Christ we receive both grace and truth, which God is able to give because by faith, we are crucified with Christ and we live as Christ lives in us. The faith of Christ is revealed to us in our human spirit and consciousness. The faith of Christ has its roots in God Himself. It is in perfect harmony with God’s reasoning, purpose, and His plans. And it is according to this faith that we are confident of God’s performance of work in us. We must believe and obey what the Spirit speaks to us and convicts us of in our inner being and in our conscience. This is what the bible calls obedience to the faith.

Truth sounds like hate to those who hate the truth. God has a people who refuse to engage in any unright, to pretend reality is something other than what it is. We are not willing to hold back truth to preserve people’s feelings. We look to Jesus. He loved people very much, and we are to love people too much, to withhold the truth from them when it is He that offers it. To not speak truth is a price that is too high to pay for our relationship with God. We have a deep sorrow that so many people are offended by reality, but reality is not going to change simply because someone pretends that it is different from how it actually is. It’s a delusion when someone feels or believes something enough, to think it must be true. People talk about “their truth”, but that is a contradiction in terms. Truth is Truth. If you don’t like the truth, it will not change for you simply because you are offended by it. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. 2 Corinthians 13:8 There is always a time and place to speak truth. There is always a time, a place to put truth out there. Some hold back telling truth, so as not to contradict anyone for fear of losing that person. That is most selfish in the most arrogant form. If something is said, meaning it to be the truth and another think it wrong, they should feel free to comment, with respect to proper social etiquette - taking their turn, and giving the other person their turn to talk – that’s called reasoning. If however, someone does not want to discuss a certain topic, they should not bring it up. If they choose to bring it up, they shouldn’t be offended that someone else corrects them with facts. It’s not right to bring up a topic that you don’t want to discuss, and then get annoyed at others for responding to it. If one chooses to walk away as a result, then that is their choice, and if they choose to not reason for truth, then allow them to have their delusion. At the end of the day, we are concerned about the standard of our own life, and of following Christ. The pressure exuded by worldly standards is enormous to compromise the truth in order to get along, to present the truth less boldly, or to remain silent altogether. It takes a boldness and confidence to attend the order of God’s Word. This confidence and boldness must not be rooted in our own abilities. If we speak boldly because we have put our trust in our own intellect or speaking skills, then we have not proclaimed God’s Word with a holy confidence but with self-importance. Our boldness must arise from a firm commitment to the truth of God’s Word. Those who preach and teach confidently in the manner that God approves of, are those who humbly admit that they themselves are heralds of the Lord, bearing His unchanging message that is not only for those being taught but also for the teacher. Outward adorning is fleeting Reason is sufficient to know truth, in fact, reason is the most reliable means of attaining knowledge. But what about such things as beauty, morals, and matters of the spirit? Most have inherited the belief that such things are at best matters of opinion; they are subjective matters having to do only with the individual’s experiences and tastes. Outward adorning is fleeting. We observe the integrity of the upright guiding them. We know that the natural man cannot receive the things of the spirit of God, he has no discernment. The question is, “can we have knowledgeable confidence in the truth of the faith”? Reason and revelation are the only truly reliable sources of knowledge. Reason is the authority. We start with God, the supreme arbiter of truth. Knowledge is to be objective, certain, and dispassionate - not subject to personal feelings. We come to know that faith is fundamental, even to doubt. For even doubt must rest upon belief. Because one doubts something because it conflicts with something else one already believes. And if that something else is doubted, it too, conflicts with something believed. To doubt everything is to learn nothing. In order to learn something, we must believe something. This is how truth of faith doesn’t rest on the fragility of human reason, although it is through our minds that we recognize faith’s truth. It rests on the faithfulness of God who has made Himself known to us. Our assurance comes from the combination of reasoning, knowing, believing, and following the One who is truth, and is evidenced by the revelation of His working out all things. We conclude that our faith is held as truth because of the certainty of the word, which is the correspondence of reality. Truth is the product of the creative activity of God. If this be our faith, then we intend our words to reflect what really is the case. And because truth is accessible, we reason to know that spiritual beliefs based upon the word of God correspond with reality. Conflicting truths must be rejected also, for if truth is that which conforms to reality and reality itself cannot be contradictory, truth cannot be either. Either it is raining outside the window or it’s not. It can’t be doing both at the same time in the same location. Either Jesus could have saved himself as he saved others, or he couldn’t. It was precisely because he came to save others that he could not save himself! To descend from the cross was not indeed a physical impossibility, but it was a moral and spiritual impossibility for the One sent to save us. Likewise, either God Am or He ain’t. As God as He is, He can’t be both. Our beliefs must go beyond   our own perspectives to reflections of reality itself. This is therefore a faith commitment. We have reason to know what the truth is, especially because the One who knows Explanation of Reality about it perfectly tells us. The construct of language will not change what is truth. While a change of terminology might change the attitude about something, it doesn’t change that something itself. We don’t change the nature of something simply by changing the words we use for it. We confidently rest on the faith we hold as describing the way things really are. There is no reason in principle to assume we can’t know ultimate realities just because of our human limitations. It is arbitrary to simply decide God cannot reveal truth to us because of our limitations. We have been met by the One who created the "story" of the world and is able to put the pieces together into a coherent whole. His is the one true explanation of reality. God’s people are not trapped behind opinions. In Christ we have direct contact with revelation. And thus, we do not "impose" truth on others. Truth is knowable and sharable by and with those who study to show themselves approved of God. God gives us each our own story of life’s situations. We respond that we have a story that puts all the pieces together, a story which is coherent and consistent, and which matches the nature of the purposes for service for humanity. In response to all things, we look to Jesus, a historical Person who The story is coherent and consistent has revealed to us more than our reason is capable of discovering on its own. In response to hate we look to Jesus the Creator of all and the final Word who has revealed to us ultimate truth. In him we find truth in its fullest sense, as the One who is real and trustworthy and who speaks. In him, by him, and through him, we can have confidence in our faith. This is why God instructs His last day people to write! The truth and certainty of God’s purposes are ratified by the word and promise of God, and ordered to be committed to writing, as matter of perpetual record. Words given to you from God, are for the support and comfort of the faithful. To provoke faith in our struggle. God has given to mankind such a high degree of autonomy and freedom, that if we choose to continue down a path of death and destruction, He will let us go, even though it pains Him greatly, and even though He does everything possible to warn us about where such paths lead. God instructs His last day people to write! A time such as never was, is the conclusion to a time of intense personal crisis for people on earth. Especially for the people of God. Some are going to defect from the faith. The challenges to our faith will seem even more formidable than they did when we were unrepentant. But the answers to those challenges will be even more convincing than they were when we knew nothing could separate us from the love of God. When asked for the reason of our hope, in a sense, we are supposed to apologize for our faith. This has nothing to do with being sorry for our beliefs. But rather, we are to contend for the faith with sound arguments for our beliefs as well as responding to the tough questions others raise about our faith. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Jude 1:3 The truth is going to cut. Make no apologies for truth. We need the Word of God, the wisdom of God, and the counsel of God in all places and in all circumstances. There is no place that it is inappropriate to use or allude to God’s Word. It is in fact wicked to deny anyone the freedom to read, speak of, or use the Word of God in any context. The Word of God is at times meant to cut away thoughts and concepts that oppose the will or way of God. It is essential to allow the harsh words, the ones that seem to go straight to the heart of conviction, to do their work. The sharp scalpel is used to cut out the God's scalpel corrects cancer or the sharp scalpel is used to correct the alignment of the eye. If one is healthy in the word of God then it will not cut, it will correct. The Lord will bring harsh truth that may cut us. We should be thankful that He has shown us such grace and love. If we do this, we will see the fruit of righteousness abounding in our souls and healing is not far away. We will learn the difference of pain which is caused by disease and that which is produced in the process of healing. Self-righteousness brings division within the body of Christ. Believers should never apologize for believing, quoting, or affirming the Word of God. No, not ever or in any situation. Why should anyone ever apologize for acknowledging God or for using His wisdom? Rather, we should boldly speak of, read, and reference the Word of God, and our total dependence on His all powerful Word. As we move deeper and deeper into hostile spiritual territory in the last day, the spiritual needs of those around us are going to become more and more apparent. As we become more and more capable of sharing our faith with others, we will be more and more inclined to do so, enabling us to be used in a greater way by God. We'll be in a better place when we pray, when we read, and study the scriptures; when we wrestle with our self problems allowing God to preserve us. Let’s get our priorities straight. There are only two eternal things on this earth…God’s people and God's Word. Everything else will ultimately be burned up.

Have you ever wondered why the trials we must endure are so intense. In that God knows how we end, why do we need to go through trials. By faith we are to develop spiritual perspective through embracing trials. Trials produce maturity in God’s people. Trials help us to recognize God’s gracious and passionate power. We learn to persevere through trials that threaten our faith. Our suffering is never meaningless, and it is not accidental. For such a time as this, God is purposing extreme circumstances to develop our faith and trust in Him. God knows what is necessary for His people to find joy in suffering. We know trials are part of the believer’s life, and God would have us handle each one in a way that glorifies Him. Even though we should expect trials, we do not know when they will take place, which makes them unpredictable. But we count it all joy when we fall into various trials. The word communicates these unexpected nature of trials in a way that we face, meet, and encounter them as being from the Lord. Before trials reach us, they first pass through the throne of God. Trials It is our most holy faith that prepares us for every trial. This faith is a great blessing given to us from God, of God, and even with God. When this faith comes into us, it comes with God, with all that God is, with all that God has passed through, with all that God has accomplished in Christ and through the Spirit, and with all that God has obtained and attained. We prayerfully build this faith by praying in the Holy Spirit, staying right at the center of God's love, keeping our arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life! The second most extreme consequence of a trial is death. The first is failing in the trial and missing eternity with God. The nature of trial is that it is personal and unique. There are times, and will be times, we experience suffering that could be considered life changing. There also are the trials that take place daily and can even become unrecognizable because of their regularity. We need a strong foundation to endure the trials that can lead to the collapse of our lives. That foundation is obedience to Christ. There is a difference between trial and discipline. God wants to reveal Himself through trials and use them for our good, but we do not have to wonder if we did something wrong. We learned that a trial does not necessarily indicate wrongdoing, but sometimes we do bring on our own suffering. What happens if we suffer because we did something wrong? That is not a trial. That is discipline. Suffering is part of God’s perfect and wise plan for His people even when they do good. If we do sin, we should expect consequences. Death is due but God may choose to discipline. David committed adultery. Moses struck the rock. These men suffered because of their sins. It would be incorrect to say they experienced trials in these cases. It would be correct to say God disciplined them because they sinned. The same is true of the negative consequences of foolish decisions. There are consequences for poor judgment. Sometimes people sin, are disciplined, and then say, “why am I suffering?” If friends love them enough to be honest, they will answer, “because of your disobedience. ”If we are Christ’s, we humbly accept our punishment. If we sin and God disciplines us, we can be encouraged that He does so because He loves us. We want to be confident in our salvation, and experiencing discipline allows us to say, “God is my Father. I am His child.” Sometimes people sin and it looks like they are getting away with it. Either God is giving them time to repent, or they are not His children. The bible was written with this realistic perspective, that life in this fallen world is often dreadfully unjust and painful. Again, God’s purpose in allowing us to experience trials is to bring us to maturity. God wants to produce individuals who are mature - who look like His Son Jesus, who are resilient, who have grit, who aren’t fragile, who can bear up without giving up. God wants to produce people who show up well in all kinds of situations - happy situations, sad situations, easy situations, and hard situations. We need to ask God for wisdom when encountering trials. Wisdom is faith in relating to God, wisdom is skill in relating to all kinds of people, and wisdom is aptitude in relating to all kinds of situations. A trial is something that happens in life that has the potential to teach us something. God will allow trials; a testing of our faith. God is more interested in our character than our comfort. He is developing something inside us. Trials are part of God’s work. Trials put God’s power on display. Trials causes us to depend on God.   Our enduring trials is God preparing us for His promise. He teaches us things. He grows our character, our faith, and our ability to do what we are called to do. There is divine design in each of our lives and that we have rendezvous to keep, individually. Remember that cry on the cross, “my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”? That cry on the cross is an indication that the very best of our Father’s children found the trial so real, the test so exquisite and so severe, that he cried out - not in doubt of his Father’s reality, but wondering “why” at that moment of agony, for Jesus felt so alone. God withdrew His immediate presence from the Son so that Jesus Christ’s triumph might be truly complete. We must never doubt that sublime reality that God is always there because at times God will not be able to let us pass by a trial or a challenge. If we were allowed to bypass certain trials, everything that had gone on up to that moment in our lives would have been to no avail. It is because God loves us that, at times, He will not intercede as we may ask Him to. This, we learn from Gethsemane and from Calvary. We are going to be tried in all things. That is a hard doctrine. God chooses to teach us the things we most need to learn because He loves us, and if He seeks to discipline our souls and temper us in the way we most need to be disciplined and most need to be tempered, it follows that He will customize the challenges He gives us and individualize them so that we will be prepared for life in the eternity by His refusal to take us out of this world, even though trials - sharp & fiery we are not of it. The trials we are to go through, though they be sharp and fiery, yet they are designed only to try us, not to destroy us, to try our sincerity, strength, patience, and our trust in God. They are for the same cause that Christ suffered. Remember, we are forewarned of these things. The path of righteousness that God’s election must travel includes diverse trials. Consisting of a period of adversity caused by a contrast between our current earthly reality and the promises the Lord has given us. Enduring the test compels us to confront ourselves and decide not only who we are but who we choose to follow. The enemy will try us. Words loaded with insinuation that are calculated to cause doubts and misgivings will try us. Vanity and pride will try us. Out-and-out deceit will try us. We will be tried by thoughts that cause us to question our basic beliefs and values. We may want to pause in our investigation of truth and consider the absolute realism of the bible. Are we truly ready to reason and accept how candid and open and blunt and even gory the bible is in presenting God’s judgments upon the world, especially His own people in this final time that we are in. The bible does not shrink back from any truth that witnesses what God ordains. The trials, the tests, the temptations, the agonies, the sufferings that we learn of, that we experience, have meaning and eventual righteous resolution only if we come to embrace the biblical reality that sin against an infinitely wise and just and good God is a moral outrage greater than the physical outrage of centuries of global suffering. Let me say that again, because it is the heart of the matter, and it is very difficult for people without the Holy Spirit’s massive work to embrace: the physical horrors of suffering in this world can make sense to us and have meaning and eventual righteous resolution only if we come to embrace the biblical reality that sin against an infinitely wise and just and good God is a moral outrage greater than the physical outrage of centuries of global suffering. Each experience does not necessarily correspond to a sin. Biblical truth does not correlate between the extent of an individual’s suffering in this world and the extent of their guilt. Read Romans chapter eight, verses twenty through twenty-three. It talks to our universal groaning. Our agonizing in suffering. The sin that came into the world through Adam and spread to all people is a moral outrage greater than the physical outrage of suffering, which means that seeing and believing the goodness and justice of God assumes a self-denying revolution of our mind and heart. If we’re going to see God as good and just and wise, we have to undergo such a profound mental and spiritual revolution of mind and heart so that God ceases to be just a deity that circles humanity. He is that massively holy, blazing, glorious S-O-N at the center of the all that is creation. God becomes supreme reality. His being becomes the supreme worth and treasure of the universe. Trials are the pronouncement that all human suffering is a screaming witness to the greater dreadfulness of human sin. This is how and why our faith keeps reasoning with the truth of the revelation that God sent His Son into this world, sent His very self, to suffer a moral outrage, greater than the outrage against his Father by all his people in their sin. For the infinitely pure and good and wise and strong and holy Son of God to descend to the degradation and torture of a crucifixion is enough suffering, enough indignity, to cover all the outrage of all the sins of all who believe. This is not a simple faith…it is a gift that shows God’s love for sinners is unconditional, for He loves even when there is no reciprocity. The presence of trials and suffering in this world must not be a stumbling block to the sincereness of our worship for God, our witness to the world, and our testimony to those who overcome. Jesus could have healed Lazarus before he died. His purpose was to affect the faith of circumstances for the sisters. It’s not that their suffering or our suffering doesn’t matter: it matters enough to bring tears to the eyes of the Son of God! He purposed a relationship formed through suffering as much as through joy. Suffering at the death of a brother, joy in the resurrection of Jesus. The man blind from birth was not due to his sin nor the sin of his parents. This was purposed to blind show the works of God. If the goal of our existence is relationship with him, finding him in our suffering is the point. Jesus’s power over death is absolute. He is not a means to an end, he is the end. He is the only hope we have in the face of our inevitable end. Through the enduring of trial and suffering we are brought closest to God’s heart. Those who are chosen and beloved by God will be tried. Here is where we see the divine purpose of reasoning. It is that we may expose the fault lines between our natural assumptions and the biblical narrative of truth. You can read the letter of the words, yet unless you reason in the spirit of the word, the truth will evade your understanding. God could have used the flood to move us from Genesis to Revelation. But we would have missed out on that wonderful developing relationship with Jesus Christ. We would have missed the course of the covenant relationship where the faith of Abraham was tried. We would have missed the forming of Israel in the four hundred years of suffering and trials for the disciplining of a people. We would have missed the divine relationship between the man Moses and God and the trials of the wilderness experience which prompted The Sanctuary that coming of Jesus displayed in the teaching of the sanctuary. The beginning of the bible paints a picture of paradise: two human beings in relationship with God and with each other, unstained by sin or trial or suffering or death. God could just have stopped Adam and Eve from sinning in the first place. And even if there were reasons to allow sin - granting human free will, perhaps - one can imagine a much shorter, straighter line to draw between the beginning and the end than the scriptures describe. But the purposed “new creation” is not just a return to the idyllic old. It is far better. In the early Genesis narrative, Adam and Eve knew God as Creator and Lord, perhaps, even, as friend. But we know Jesus far more intimately: as Savior, Brother, Fellow Sufferer, our resurrection and our Life. The first humans could have this intimacy with God. It was an intimacy glimpsed in their experience of each other before they turned from their Maker. The original vision of humanity was very good. But it was not the best. The best, from a biblical perspective, was yet to come. And the way to get there would be through trial and suffering. Follow the spiritual script that is played out on the cosmic stage of creation down to our day. Note the journey of all the central characters in Christ is through darkness, to some even death, but to all the hope of the better end. For the true believer, all trials and tribulations have a divine purpose. God’s ultimate purpose for us is to grow more and more into the image of His Son. Everything in life, including the trials and tribulations, is designed to get us to this perfection. Trials are intended to set us apart for God’s purposes and to fit us to live for His glory. This is the trial of our faith tried by fire. The true believer’s faith will be made sure by the trials we experience so that we can rest in the knowledge that it is real and will last forever. Trials develop godly character, and that enables us to rejoice in our trials, in our sufferings, because we know that these produce perseverance. And that proves our faith. But our trials, our tribulations must not be the result of any wrongdoing. God uses our trials and tribulations to give us both purpose and a reward that we may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Let the trials reveal who is in us. It is God’s way of transforming us in the maturing of our faith. In our responding to trials with God’s grace, we experience the power of God’s Spirit manifested in the life. Our response makes all the difference in our spiritual growth. Instead of despairing, we glory in the power of Christ resting upon us. We engage in this spiritual warfare by proclaiming truth in the face of tests, trials, and temptations. The greatest reason God takes us through trials in life is to bring us to the firm conclusion that we need Him. So we cry out to God. He alone must become our source of strength. Trials strengthen our dependence upon Him. We must trust that God has the ability to protect us from every trial or distress. But we know that He chooses God has the ability to protect us instead to deliver, strengthen, and preserve us in the midst of trials. We overcome the enemy in God’s strength for we know that God is faithful and He will not allow us to be tried above that we are able. And this is not based on any resource of our own. We are made able by faith in divine assistance, and that God knows what He Himself will give us by grace in enabling us to handle what He gives us. God will never let us so stumble or so fail that we don’t recover and repent and are restored. In other words, He will never let us sin our way away from Him. He will enable us to bear the fruits of genuine faith and perseverance to the end. The good work He has begun, He will perform. Those He has predestined, He called, He justified, He glorified. He has prayed that our faith fail not. There are realities of God’s love for us. He will particularly suit the course for each of us in order to teach us the things we most need to know. He will set before us in life what we need, not always what we like. And this will require us to accept with all our hearts - the truth that there is divine design in each of our lives and that we have rendezvous to keep, individually and collectively. Our trials are temporary. Our trials are not about us. They are for the fulfilling of the purposes of God.

God measures the progress of our civilization by making Himself known to us as a society of persons, existing eternally in mutual love and deference. Knowing God rests in His love. In America today, we are living in a toxic political climate that is the product of a very dangerous combination: a backwards civilization of unthinking leaders and frenzied citizens. Hate wears many different masks Hate, as the bible says, stirs up strife. It is a toxic energy that wears many different masks, and behind them all, dwells the same thing: self-hatred, fear, cruelty, thoughtlessness, and selfishness. Hate is a heavy subject of attitude and sentiment whose behavioral outcome will be death…death most certainly to the hater, and may be also to the hated. Hate is gravely different than dislike or contempt. It is the deadliest of all venom. In this country particularly, too many are too comfortable with hate. There are isolated groups in this country that experience the dimensions of hate of such intensity and duration until their very existence must be a constant alert to aggression. This is because in this land the truth of annihilating one people – and enslaving another is a consistent theme in the history of our country. In the book of the devolution of humanity, will be written this clause concerning the people who constitute hatred: these were taught hate as a way of life. This kind of hate is born in the fertile womb of fear, which showed up as a sense of superiority, intolerance, bigotry, ignorance, and arrogance. Malicious hatred did not originate with humans. It started when an angel in heaven, who came to be called Satan the Devil, rebelled against God. He has continued to instigate hatred and aggression among countless human beings. Hatred thrives in intolerance. The world we live in, feeds hatred by promoting harmful attitudes and behavior. Intolerance, prejudice, insulting speech, bullying, thrive because the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one. The wisdom, the knowledge and understanding that is learned in reasoning with God cannot release me from the awareness of the devastating narrative that transcends history and geography. Humanity’s existence today reminds us all of the veracity of hate. There is so much hate in the world, I reasoned, because hate is hard-wired in the brain. Hate commonly fills the void of a lesser intellect. Hatred has its origins in personal stories that characterize one who has life frustrations. Hatred is based on the perception of the other, but also has a strong relationship with ourselves, with our personal history, and its effects on our personality, feelings, ideas, beliefs, and especially our identity. Certain adversity in our lives can trigger and intensify hatred such as jealousy or failure. These are often under- achievers in the real matters of life. This leads to a deep-rooted inferiority There is so much hate in the world complex and frustration. In an effort to salvage some of their sagging self- esteem, they try to compensate for it by latching on to something, which, in their perception, is visibly, tangibly an ‘achiever’ – such as a political party or some well-known organization. By associating themselves with that organization, they feel that the prestige, recognition of the organization will ‘rub off’ onto them and compensate for what they could not achieve individually. It is a learned and practiced emotion. We are witnessing the time of a troubling story of coercion, victimization, and devastating violence. We are experiencing an ancient narrative of a politically motivated education in hate, sanctioned by America’s political order, and enacted by a frightened and rageful people. A certain people that regards hate as an extension of the human tendency to form groups and for those groups to become the “us”, who focus their hatred on the “them”. Characterized by blind adherence and uncritical thinking, dilutes empathy, awareness of others’ suffering, and feelings of guilt towards the object of hatred. Haters thus acquire the ability to morally disengage from their actions and create excuses for the hatred they feel, or the suffering that they consciously cause. The facade of religion is used to conceal their conscience. Society is fueled with such malignant divisiveness that it is seriously affecting the nation, besides debasing our sense of humanity itself. God’s truth is the only source of hope. During the last days of this world, there will be times of great trouble. People will be cruel and they will hate anything that is good. People will turn against their friends. They will do foolish things. They will boast that they are very important. They will not love God, but instead they will only want to revel in a false privilege, purposefully constructed. This they hold to themselves believing to be privileged from conception. Being ignorant that privilege is not something you are born with, it is something society gives one that is not based upon equal intentions. These people will think to be serving God. But really, they refuse to accept God's power to help them. We must be spiritually discerning of such people. These are people who speak against God's true message. Human conduct, unrestrained by the law of God, will bring this earth to the point of almost complete destruction. But there will be some people—a very small group—who will not embrace lawlessness. In fact, these people will be defined by the opposite, lawfulness . They will govern their lives by God’s law, which will make them stand in stark contrast to the world around them. These will be delivered up to tribulation and all nations will hate them. There will be a great apostasy during the end times. A rebellion, an abandonment of the truth. The end times will include a wholesale rejection of God’s revelation, a further “falling away” of an already fallen world. God is not yet done. Mankind has not yet been sufficiently warned. Bible prophecies will come to be. The world merits God’s disapproval. Hate will be grounded in the realm of racism and prejudiceness, fear and ignorances. It is the upsurge of self, the mind of the flesh over God. Threats, Confiscation of Property confiscation of property, beatings, murder will be advanced in evilness. All who reject biblical values, who reject that we are created by an all wise God in His image, who reject God’s framework of the family unit, who reject absolute truth, who reject morality, who reject the claims of Jesus, yet are accepting of lies and false claims by supposedly leaders - it appears that these are becoming bolder, louder, more powerful, and more willing to silence those who disagree with them. Be warned that we will be hated because of our faith and true adherence to Jesus’ teachings. Hatred is more than just an emotion. It is a negative behavior with severe consequences. America has always been fertile ground that breeds hate, persecution, and silencing toward certain peoples. And now it is for those who proclaim hope in Jesus and His word. Be strengthened to testify of Him no matter what the result. Treading water is over. In the currents ahead of us we will have to be stronger than ever to swim in the Jordan or we will drown. Our hope is not in circumstances changing, nor is it in political figures.  Don’t allow your voice to be silenced. Don’t allow for you to be forced into isolation. Don’t allow your mind to be tarnished by news and social culture. Hate and persecution will increase, we will need the counsel, input, and encouragement of each other more than ever. Be wise, aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your mind and hands, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. But please don’t make a habit of spiritual distancing. We need each other spiritually. Love one another as Jesus commands and then persevere through being loved or hated in return. Bestowed prenatally upon God’s people is His grace. And that, in His sufficiency. The bible always perfectly corresponds to reality; whatever the bible says is in accord with reality; whatever it says about God is in accord with reality; whatever it says about man is in accord with reality; whatever it says about history is the way it really is, and it cannot be denied. Humanity is getting worse and worse and worse - and at the end, the explosion of things will reach epic proportions…the worst of time ever that could be known. We’ve already faced the hostility borne by this country. We’ve already seen their hatred and animosity. Jesus was hated because of his inclusion and tolerance. The most intense, murderous fury of hatred directed toward Jesus was because he proclaimed “I am the Christ, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” They simply did not have the eyes to see or the faith to believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. They hated Jesus without a cause. Not knowing that in Christ the world hates God Himself. What do we proclaim of ourselves? And as did he, we will upset their traditions and their scruples about the law. He was from above. We are one from beyond. Hate knows no bounds. It is in motion at every level. We are living in a world that hates. We have seen violence prompted by hatred. Hatred will be carried out against those who desire more than anything to preach the love of the Lord Jesus Christ and demonstrate compassion for those who suffer. Hatred gnaws at the vitals of people. It threatens the freedom of worshiping Jesus Christ as witnessed on every continent. Hatred is rampant—a sign of the Every Continent depravity of the human race. The bible teaches hatred is sin.   There is much to be said for the contagion of hate. Fear and deception are reflections of it. Love, as critical as it is, must possess a deep understanding of hatred. Hatred begins its epicycle with human contact as devoid of warmth and genuine fellowship, subsequently devolving into a stage of “unsympathetic understanding,” by which “the first step along the road of bitterness and hatred is assured,” and eventually reaches a crucial point at which this “penetrating, incisive, cold understanding…tends to express itself in the active functioning of ill will. Hate is the great insulator, making it possible for one man to deny the existence of another, or, will the other’s nonexistence, that violence is the act through which such a will is implemented, and hate is its dynamic. Periods of national crisis make it seemingly necessary to discipline men in hatred of other human beings. Hate corrodes unity as it presents an illusion of righteousness while it remains essentially and ultimately destructive. It guarantees a final isolation from one’s fellows. It blinds the individual to all values of worth, even as they apply to themself and their fellows. Hatred bears deadly and bitter fruit. It must be borne in mind that hatred tends to dry up the springs of creative thought. Hatred Hatred bears deadly and bitter fruit means death to the mind, death to the spirit, death to communion with the Father. Hatred indulges deception and dishonesty. Americans hate in such unprecedented proportions based on race, religion, gender, culture, caste, country, or nation. This selectively perpetrated by fear. They hate not just a specific individual but the entire category whom they have positioned themselves against based upon artificial differences. The differences, if any, arise because of our cultures and not our genes. Every person, first and foremost, is a human being. Our common humanity and unique individuality must be shared from the perspective of cultural understanding and inclusivity. The thing that the enemies of God continues to use, is hatred, in the attempts that God’s people will hate in return. In their ignorance they know not that this turns to be a great asset and blessing to us. For they know not that we love our enemies and are made stronger than ever in Christ, for love expresses our faith in God. We come to a complete and unqualified love for every single person everywhere, no exceptions. Not just a momentary love, but a sincere, honest, heartfelt, substantial love. This does not require us to accept the things people do that are hateful and selfish. We strive to love as God loves us, knowing that, through the unchallengeable, incontestable power of God’s love, anyone can ultimately be cleansed of sin with finality. There is a peculiar people of God who has been spiritually revived to come to Him to reason with His purposes for all things. The souls of these have no color, no national allegiance, no loyalty to ungodliness. These know that love conquers every act of hate. No matter the barrage of hate, love will prevail. There are too many herstories and histories that arc the truth of love as the only light that drives out darkness. God’s truth heightens our own spiritual purity by welcoming the cleansing presence of God’s love within. We can then affirm that love is in authority everywhere, and is operating effectively and inevitably, not only within us, but even within those whom we could suffer for. We take refuge in the love of God illumining the way for others to do the same. God’s people are born of the spirit and borne by the spirit having always the propensity for faith in God. This land thinks itself to have been predisposed to greatness. Thinking itself to be exceptional. There is a just spanking that is coming. And with it no forgiveness. Hatred will boomerang in the end. God’s people understand the purpose and power of love. We are familiar with biblical prophecy foreshadowing the end of time. And we hear this sounded from the mouth of Christ…and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.  Because of hate , many people will stop loving each other. We who live in the last days witness, and may even be affected by , these huge social movements in which we have absolutely no control. Yet what follows is a sign and implied expectation that is totally within our control…we hold fast to our love. Because of sin we are limited creatures here. But God fashions us after His likeness, transmittable to us, His image- bearers, to reflect the attributes of our Creator. When we consider love, whether a human or divine attribute, we must always do so in correlation with God’s full character. We must first ponder God’s love as integral to His moral perfections and then consider the exercise of His love. There is no distortion to God’s love. God’s love obligates reciprocation. His redeeming love for us is conditioned on obedience. It means that God set His love upon every human without exception. But God has those whom He calls His elect ones. God’s unconditional, electing love establishes His covenantal relationship with these, which stipulates conditions concerning how His people are to come to Him. God requires our belief, our obedience, and our steadfast faithfulness. This obligates us to apply these truths thoughtfully and carefully to ourselves and our relationships. We hear the truth that “God so loved the world” and picture the vastness of God’s love. We hear the magnitude of His love. But do we consider the “so loved” to mean “of manner, or how”? Read this…“God loved the people of this world so much that He gave His only Son”. Now read it this way… “God loved the world in this way, namely, that He gave His only Son.” What is the way God shows His love toward the world of sinful humans? Now that stipulates a reciprocal response of love. God knew of the hatred that would inflict destruction upon humanity. He sent His Son into a world that hated him so that wicked humans would indict His righteous Son, condemn him to death, and execute him. They did not realize that they were carrying out God’s purpose and design by which He would redeem everyone who heeds the call of the gospel’s command to acknowledge His risen Son as the only savior of the world. Hate distorts God’s implanted image. Knowledge of God restrains human wickedness. Excepting for God’s purpose, hatred would utterly expunge humanity as did wickedness to the antediluvian society. The world indulges in hate today, and with all determination is setting itself against God by hating His people. Because of hatred, many who are not of color have become irrational people – inhumane people – indeed “crazy” people. These people are suffering from amnesia and anesthesia. But they are also unaware of God’s justice and equity. This is a state of being that involves choices, behaviors, and thoughts. The further away from God the world strays, the more hate will motivate decisions. This will only lead to violence and prejudice. While there is truth to this idea, it will also manifest in hating truth for lies, hating godly wisdom for man’s foolishness, and hating God’s justice for man’s injustice. Hate is dangerous, because when taken to its logical God's Justice conclusion, it is the desire to eliminate the humanity of another. It is the most destructive affective phenomenon in the history of human nature. Jesus makes the love-ethic central in the lives of his people. His people never hate their haters. Only by a right understanding of the cross can we truly love God and love others, and to that end we must labor as long as we are on this earth to save a soul.

When God pardons the sinner, remits the punishment he deserves, and treats him as though he had not sinned, He receives him into divine favor, and justifies him through the merits of Christ's righteousness. The sinner can be justified only through faith in the atonement made through God's dear Son, who became a sacrifice for the sins of the guilty world. No one can be justified by any works of his own. He can be delivered from the guilt of sin, from the condemnation of the law, from the penalty of transgression, only by virtue of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. Faith is the only condition upon which justification can be obtained, and faith includes not only belief, but trust. Many have a nominal faith in Christ, but they know nothing of that vital dependence upon Him which appropriates the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour. Of this nominal faith James says: "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" Faith Without Works is Dead This is but a bare speculation and knowledge of faith. Faith must be the first principle. We are to have no good account of ourselves merely because we believe in him. If we are content with a bare assent to the articles of faith, and some speculations upon them, our faith is the same as of the devils. Our fear, our trembling is out of reverence, not hatred and opposition. We give up ourselves to God as the gospel directs, and we love Him, and we delight ourselves in Him, and we serve Him, which the devils do not, cannot do. Our spiritual life, our availability to eternal life is our rest in the faith of Jesus. The accounting of our righteousness is not separated from our faith, for both our righteousness and our faith are of Jesus Christ Himself. In him we are justified and in him are we saved. And so, our faith endears us to the Divine Being and advances us to very peculiar favors and intimacies with God. There is no boast to being Israel if we copy not the faith of Jesus. We must give evidence as God commands…self-denial as did Abraham. In our faith what we devoutly purpose and sincerely resolve to do for God is accepted as if actually performed. Our dying to self is regarded as offering up our life. Though we do not actually proceed to physically die, it is an offering of sacrifice to Him. It is a done thing in the mind, and in the spirit, and resolution that was shown of Abraham, and God accepts it as if fully performed and accomplished. This acting of faith makes it grow perfect, as the truth of faith makes it act. Such an acting faith will make others friends of God. Our faith brings us to God in Christ…one will, one heart, one mind. And now, upon the whole matter, this is the grace of God wherein we stand by faith. And we should stand to it now to persist in it by the word of providence. Many concede that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world, but at the same time they hold themselves away from Him, and fail to repent of their sins, fail to accept of Jesus as their personal Saviour. Their faith is simply the assent of the mind and judgment to the truth; but the truth is not brought into the heart, that it might sanctify the soul and transform the character. "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified". Calling and justification are not one and the same thing. Calling is the drawing of the sinner to Christ, and it is a work wrought by the Holy Spirit upon the heart, convicting of sin, and inviting to repentance. Many are confused as to what constitutes the first steps in the work of salvation. Repentance is thought to be a work the sinner must do for himself in order that he may come to Christ. They think that the sinner must procure for himself a fitness in order to obtain the blessing of God's grace. But while it is true that repentance must precede forgiveness, for it is only the broken and contrite heart that is acceptable to God, yet the sinner cannot bring himself to repentance, or prepare himself to come to Christ. Except the sinner repent, he cannot be forgiven; but the question to be decided is as to whether repentance is the work of the sinner or the gift of Christ. Must the sinner wait until he is filled with remorse for his sin before he can come to Christ? The very first step to Christ is taken through the drawing of the Spirit of God; as man responds to this drawing, he advances toward Christ in order that he may repent. The sinner is The Shepherd represented as a lost sheep, and a lost sheep never returns to the fold unless he is sought after and brought back to the fold by the shepherd. No man of himself can repent, and make himself worthy of the blessing of justification. The Lord Jesus is constantly seeking to impress the sinner's mind and attract him to behold Himself, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. We cannot take a step toward spiritual life save as Jesus draws and strengthens the soul, and leads us to experience that repentance which needeth not to be repented of. When before the high priests and Sadducees, Peter clearly presented the fact that repentance is the gift of God. Speaking of Christ, he said, "Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins". Repentance is no less the gift of God than are pardon and justification, and it cannot be experienced except as it is given to the soul by Christ. If we are drawn to Christ, it is through His power and virtue. The grace of contrition comes through Him, and from Him comes justification. Paul writes: "But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation". The faith that is unto salvation is not a casual faith, it is not the mere consent of the intellect, it is belief rooted in the heart, that embraces Christ as a personal Saviour, assured that He can save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. To believe that He will save others, but will not save you is not genuine faith; but when the soul lays hold upon Christ as the only hope of salvation, then genuine faith is manifested. This faith leads its possessor to place all the affections of the soul upon Christ; his understanding is under the control of the Holy Spirit, and his character is molded after the divine likeness. His faith is not a dead faith, but a faith that works by love, and leads him to behold the beauty of Christ, and to become assimilated to the divine character. "And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live". It is God that circumcises the heart. The whole work is the Lord's from the beginning to the end. The perishing sinner may say: "I am a lost sinner; but Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. He says, 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance'. I am a sinner, and He died upon Calvary's cross to save me. I need not remain a moment longer unsaved. He died and rose again for my justification, and He will save me now. I accept the forgiveness He has promised." Christ is a risen Saviour; for, though He was dead, He has risen again, and ever liveth to make intercession for us. We are to believe with the heart unto righteousness, and with the mouth make confession unto salvation. Those who are justified by faith will make confession of Christ. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life". The great work that is wrought for the sinner who is spotted and stained by evil is the work of justification. By Him who speaketh truth, he is declared righteous. The Lord imputes unto the believer the righteousness of Christ and pronounces him righteous before the universe. He transfers his sins to Jesus, the sinner's representative, substitute, and surety. Upon Christ He lays the iniquity of every soul that believeth. "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him". Christ made satisfaction for the guilt of the whole world, and all who will come to God in faith, will receive the righteousness of Christ, "who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed". Our sin has been expiated, put away, cast into the depths of the sea. Through repentance and faith we are rid of sin, and look unto the Lord our righteousness. Jesus suffered, the just for the unjust. Although as sinners we are under the condemnation of the law, yet Christ by His obedience rendered to the law, claims for the repentant soul the merit of His own righteousness. In order to obtain the righteousness of Christ, it is necessary for the sinner to know what that repentance is which works a radical change of mind and spirit and action. Work of Transformation Must Begin in the Heart The work of transformation must begin in the heart, and manifest its power through every faculty of the being; but man is not capable of originating such a repentance as this, and can experience it alone through Christ, who ascended up on high, led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Who is desirous of becoming truly repentant? What must he do?--He must come to Jesus, just as he is, without delay. He must believe that the word of Christ is true, and, believing the promise, ask, that he may receive. When sincere desire prompts men to pray, they will not pray in vain. The Lord will fulfill His word, and will give the Holy Spirit to lead to repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. He will pray and watch, and put away his sins, making manifest his sincerity by the vigor of his endeavor to obey the commandments of God. With prayer he will mingle faith, and not only believe in but obey the precepts of the law. He will announce himself as on Christ's side of the question. He will renounce all habits and associations that tend to draw the heart from God. He who would become a child of God must receive the truth that repentance and forgiveness are to be obtained through nothing less than the atonement of Christ. Assured of this the sinner must put forth an effort in harmony with the work done for him, and with unwearied entreaty he must supplicate the throne of grace, that the renovating power of God may come into his soul. Christ pardons none but the penitent, but whom He pardons He first makes penitent. The provision made is complete, and the eternal righteousness of Christ is placed to the account of every believing soul. The costly, spotless robe, woven in the loom of heaven, has been provided for the repenting, believing sinner, and he may say: "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness". Abundant grace has been provided that the believing soul may be kept free from sin; for all heaven, with its limitless resources, has been placed at our command. We are to draw from the well of salvation. Christ is the end of law for righteousness to everyone who believeth. In ourselves we are sinners; but in Christ we are righteous. Having made us righteous through the imputed righteousness of Christ, God pronounces us just, and treats us as just. He looks upon us as His dear children. Christ works against the power of sin, and where sin abounded, grace much more abounds. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God". "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus". "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God". The Lord would have His people sound in the faith-- not ignorant of the great salvation so abundantly provided for them. They are not to look forward, thinking that at some future time a great work is to be done for them; for the work is now complete. The believer is not called upon to make his peace with God; he never has nor ever can do this. He is to accept Christ as his peace, for with Christ is God and peace. Christ made an end of sin, bearing its heavy curse in His own body on the tree, and He hath taken away the curse from all those who believe in Him as a personal Saviour. He makes an end of the controlling power of sin in the heart, and the life and character of the believer testify to the genuine character of the grace of Christ. To those that ask Him, Jesus imparts the Holy Spirit; for it is necessary that every believer should be delivered from pollution, as well as from the curse and condemnation of the law. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, the sanctification of the truth, the believer becomes fitted for the courts of heaven; for Christ works within us, and His righteousness is upon us. Without this no soul will be entitled to heaven. We would not enjoy heaven unless qualified for its holy atmosphere by the influence of the Spirit and the righteousness of Christ. In order to be candidates for heaven we must meet the requirement of the law: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself". We can do this only as we grasp by faith the righteousness of Christ. By beholding Jesus we receive a living, expanding principle in the heart, and the Holy Spirit carries on the work, and the believer advances from grace to grace, from strength to strength, from character to character. He conforms to the image of Christ, until in spiritual growth he attains unto the measure of the full stature in Christ Jesus. Thus Christ makes an end of the curse of sin, and sets the believing soul free from its action and effect. Christ alone is able to do this, for "in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted". Reconciliation means that every barrier between the soul and God is removed, and that the sinner realizes what the pardoning love of God means. By reason of the sacrifice made by Christ for fallen men, God can justly pardon the transgressor who accepts the merits of Christ. Christ was the channel through which the mercy, love, and righteousness might flow from the heart of God to the heart of the sinner. "He is faithful and just to forgive Costly, Spotless Robe Woven in the Loom of Heaven us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". In the prophecy of Daniel it was recorded of Christ that He shall "make reconciliation for iniquity, and . . . bring in everlasting righteousness". Every soul may say: "By His perfect obedience He has satisfied the claims of the law, and my only hope is found in looking to Him as my substitute and surety, who obeyed the law perfectly for me. By faith in His merits I am free from the condemnation of the law. He clothes me with His righteousness, which answers all the demands of the law. I am complete in Him who brings in everlasting righteousness. He presents me to God in the spotless garment of which no thread was woven by any human agent. All is of Christ, and all the glory, honor, and majesty are to be given to the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." Many think that they must wait for a special impulse in order that they may come to Christ; but it is necessary only to come in sincerity of purpose, deciding to accept the offers of mercy and grace that have been extended to us. We are to say: "Christ died to save me. The Lord's desire is that I should be saved, and I will come to Jesus just as I am without delay. I will venture upon the promise. As Christ draws me, I will respond." The apostle says, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness". No one can believe with the heart unto righteousness, and obtain justification by faith, while continuing the practice of those things which the Word of God forbids, or while neglecting any known duty. Genuine faith will be manifested in good works; for good works are the fruits of faith. As God works in the heart, and man surrenders his will to God, and cooperates with God, he works out in the life what God works in by the Holy Spirit, and there is harmony between the purpose of the heart and the practice of the life. Every sin must be renounced as the hateful thing that crucified the Lord of life and glory, and the believer must have a progressive experience by continually doing the works of Christ. It is by continual surrender of the will, by continual obedience, that the blessing of justification is retained. Those who are justified by faith must have a heart to keep the way of the Lord. It is an evidence that a man is not justified by faith when his works do not correspond to his profession. James says, "Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was his faith made perfect?" The faith that does not produce good works does not justify the soul. "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only". "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness". Imputation of the righteousness of Christ comes through justifying faith, and is the justification for which Paul so earnestly contends. He says: "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God…Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law". Grace is unmerited favor, and the believer is justified without any merit of his own, without any claim to offer to God. He is justified through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, who stands in the courts of heaven as the sinner's substitute and surety. But while he is justified because of the merit of Christ, he is not free to work unrighteousness. Faith works by love and purifies the Faith buds and blossoms soul. Faith buds and blossoms and bears a harvest of precious fruit. Where faith is, good works appear. The sick are visited, the poor are cared for, the fatherless and the widows are not neglected, the naked are clothed, the destitute are fed. Christ went about doing good, and when men are united with Him, they love the children of God, and meekness and truth guide their footsteps. The expression of the countenance reveals their experience, and men take knowledge of them that they have been with Jesus and learned of Him. Christ and the believer become one, and His beauty of character is revealed in those who are vitally connected with the Source of power and love. Christ is the great depositary of justifying righteousness and sanctifying grace. All may come to Him, and receive of His fullness. He says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest". Then why not cast aside all unbelief and heed the words of Jesus? You want rest; you long for peace. Then say from the heart, "Lord Jesus, I come, because Thou hast given me this invitation." Believe in Him with steadfast faith, and He will save you. Have you been looking unto Jesus, who is the author and finisher of your faith? Have you been beholding Him who is full of truth and grace? Have you accepted the peace which Christ alone can give? If you have not, then yield to Him, and through His grace seek for a character that will be noble and elevated. Seek for a constant, resolute, cheerful spirit. Feed on Christ, who is the bread of life, and you will manifest His loveliness of character and spirit.

God exists on His own. There is nothing or no one greater than God – He is the Supreme Being. Faith originates with God. That is the whole of truth of the measure of faith given to all. Receive it or forfeit it. But know that all relationship with God is dependent upon it. It brings the things that God provides for us in the spiritual realm into the physical realm. It is how we overcome the world. Everything we do must be accessed through faith. And that faith is not of our own…it is the gift of God. That is why the height of our expression of faith is in God. Have you seen immortality, incorruption? Its mystery is “faith”. Do you believe your sins are forgiven? Its mystery is "faith". The Word of God How so, because the word of God says it. The Holy Spirit empowers the word of God as the truth to enter us. God had to give us faith so that we could believe in Him and receive His salvation. This is how we receive His grace. When faith becomes that permanent part of us we grow in truth. God brought forth only one measure of faith…the measure. With that measure and the word of God we grow in the truth that grows faith to faith. It is by this that we live…by the faith of the Son of God. Now consider what measure of faith is of Jesus. This is how he can say, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” Never doubt that you do not have enough faith…that is sin. Our faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in us in Christ Jesus. We are to abide by the law that governs the operation of God’s purposes. God must be the object of our faith and for that we need a God-kind of faith. And that is the faith of Jesus as every word of God is that by which we are to live. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." A person may not be able to tell the exact time or place, or trace all the chain of circumstances in the process of conversion; but this does not prove him to be unconverted. Christ said to The wind bloweth where it listeth Nicodemus, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit." Like the wind, which is invisible, yet the effects of which are plainly seen and felt, is the Spirit of God in its work upon the human heart. That regenerating power, which no human eye can see, begets a new life in the soul; it creates a new being in the image of God. While the work of the Spirit is silent and imperceptible, its effects are manifest. If the heart has been renewed by the Spirit of God, the life will bear witness to the fact. While we cannot do anything to change our hearts or to bring ourselves into harmony with God; while we must not trust at all to ourselves or our good works, our lives will reveal whether the grace of God is dwelling within us. A change will be seen in the character, the habits, the pursuits. The contrast will be clear and decided between what they have been and what they are. The character is revealed, not by occasional good deeds and occasional misdeeds, but by the tendency of the habitual words and acts. It is true that there may be an outward correctness of deportment without the renewing power of Christ. The love of influence and the desire for the esteem of others may produce a well-ordered life. Self-respect may lead us to avoid the appearance of evil. A selfish heart may perform generous actions. By what means, then, shall we determine whose side we are on? Who has the heart? With whom are our thoughts? Of whom do we love to converse? Who has our warmest affections and our best energies? If we are Christ's, our thoughts are with Him, and our sweetest thoughts are of Him. All we have and are is consecrated to Him. We long to bear His image, breathe His spirit, do His will, and please Him in all things. Those who become new creatures in Christ Jesus will bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." They will no longer fashion themselves according to the former lusts, but by the faith of the Son of God they will follow in His steps, reflect His character, and purify themselves even as He is pure. The things they once hated they now love, and the things they once loved they hate. The proud and self-assertive become meek and lowly in heart. The vain and supercilious become serious and unobtrusive. The drunken become sober, and the profligate pure. The vain customs and fashions of the world are laid aside. Christians will seek not the "outward adorning," but "the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit." Outward adorning There is no evidence of genuine repentance unless it works reformation. If he restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, confess his sins, and love God and his fellow men, the sinner may be sure that he has passed from death unto life. When, as erring, sinful beings, we come to Christ and become partakers of His pardoning grace, love springs up in the heart. Every burden is light, for the yoke that Christ imposes is easy. Duty becomes a delight, and sacrifice a pleasure. The path that before seemed shrouded in darkness, becomes bright with beams from the Sun of Righteousness. The loveliness of the character of Christ will be seen in His followers. It was His delight to do the will of God. Love to God, zeal for His glory, was the controlling power in our Saviour's life. Love beautified and ennobled all His actions. Love is of God. The unconsecrated heart cannot originate or produce it. It is found only in the heart where Jesus reigns. "We love, because He first loved us." In the heart renewed by divine grace, love is the principle of action. It modifies the character, governs the impulses, controls the passions, subdues enmity, and ennobles the affections. This love, cherished in the soul, sweetens the life and sheds a refining influence on all around. There are two errors against which the children of God--particularly those who have just come to trust in His grace--especially need to guard. The first, already dwelt upon, is that of looking to their own works, trusting to anything they can do, to bring themselves into harmony with God. He who is trying to become holy by his own works in keeping the law, is attempting an impossibility. All that man can do without Christ is polluted with selfishness and sin. It is the grace of Christ alone, through faith, that can make us holy. The opposite and no less dangerous error is that belief in Christ releases men from keeping the law of God; that since by faith alone we become partakers of the grace of Christ, our works have nothing to do with our redemption. But notice here that obedience is not a mere outward compliance, but the service of love. The law of God is an expression of His very nature; it is an embodiment of the great principle of love, and hence is the foundation of His government in heaven and earth. If our hearts are renewed in the likeness of God, if the divine love is implanted in the soul, will not the law of God be carried out in the life? When the principle of love is implanted in the heart, when man is renewed after the image of Him that created him, the new-covenant promise is fulfilled, "I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them." And if the law is written in the heart, will it not shape the life? Obedience--the service and allegiance of love--is the true sign of discipleship. Thus the Scripture says, "This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments." "He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." Instead of releasing man from obedience, it is faith, and faith only, that makes us partakers of the grace of Christ, which enables us to render obedience. Obedience We do not earn salvation by our obedience; for salvation is the free gift of God, to be received by faith. But obedience is the fruit of faith. "Ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him." Here is the true test. If we abide in Christ, if the love of God dwells in us, our feelings, our thoughts, our purposes, our actions, will be in harmony with the will of God as expressed in the precepts of His holy law. "Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous." Righteousness is defined by the standard of God's holy law, as expressed in the ten precepts given on Sinai. That so-called faith in Christ which professes to release men from the obligation of obedience to God, is not faith, but presumption. "By grace are ye saved through faith." But "faith, if it hath not works, is dead." Jesus said of Himself before He came to earth, "I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart." And just before He ascended again to heaven He declared, "I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love." The Scripture says, "Hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. . . . He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked." "Because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps." The condition of eternal life is now just what it always has been,--just what it was in Paradise before the fall of our first parents,--perfect obedience to the law of God, perfect righteousness. If eternal life were granted on any condition short of this, then the happiness of the whole universe would be imperiled. The way would be open for sin, with all its train of woe and misery, to be immortalized. It was possible for Adam, before the fall, to form a righteous character by obedience to God's law. But he failed to do this, and because of his sin our natures are fallen and we cannot make ourselves righteous. Since we are sinful, unholy, we cannot perfectly obey the holy law. We have no righteousness of our own with which to meet the claims of the law of God. But Christ has made a way of escape for us. He lived on earth amid trials and temptations such as we have to meet. He lived a sinless life. He died for us, and now He offers to take our sins and give us His righteousness. If you give yourself to Him, and accept Him as your Saviour, then, sinful as your life may have been, for His sake you are accounted righteous. Christ's character stands in place of your character, and you are accepted before God just as if you had not sinned. More than this, Christ changes the heart. He abides in your heart by faith. You are to maintain this connection with Christ by faith and the continual surrender of your will to Him; and so long as you do this, He will work in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure. So you may say, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." So Jesus said to His disciples, "It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." Then with Christ working in you, you will manifest the same spirit and do the same good works --works of righteousness, obedience. So we have nothing in ourselves of which to boast. We have no ground for self-exaltation. Our Ground of Hope only ground of hope is in the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and in that wrought by His Spirit working in and through us. When we speak of faith, there is a distinction that should be borne in mind. There is a kind of belief that is wholly distinct from faith. The existence and power of God, the truth of His word, are facts that even Satan and his hosts cannot at heart deny. The Bible says that "the devils also believe, and tremble;" but this is not faith. Where there is not only a belief in God's word, but a submission of the will to Him; where the heart is yielded to Him, the affections fixed upon Him, there is faith--faith that works by love and purifies the soul. Through this faith the heart is renewed in the image of God. And the heart that in its unrenewed state is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, now delights in its holy precepts, exclaiming with the psalmist, "O how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day." And the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, "who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." There are those who have known the pardoning love of Christ and who really desire to be children of God, yet they realize that their character is imperfect, their life faulty, and they are ready to doubt whether their hearts have been renewed by the Holy Spirit. To such I would say, Do not draw back in despair. We shall often have to bow down and weep at the feet of Jesus because of our shortcomings and mistakes, but we are not to be discouraged. Even if we are overcome by the enemy, we are not cast off, not forsaken and rejected of God. No; Christ is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Said the beloved John, "These things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." And do not forget the words of Christ, "The Father Himself loveth you." He desires to restore you to Himself, to see His own purity and holiness reflected in you. And if you will but yield yourself to Him, He that hath begun a good work in you will carry it forward to the day of Jesus Christ. Pray more fervently; believe more fully. As we come to distrust our own power, let us trust the power of our Redeemer, and we shall praise Him who is the health of our countenance. The closer you come to Jesus, the more faulty you will appear in your own eyes; for your vision will be clearer, and your imperfections will be seen in broad and distinct contrast to His perfect nature. This is evidence that Satan's delusions have lost their power; that the vivifying influence of the Spirit of God is arousing you. No deep-seated love for Jesus can dwell in the heart that does not realize its own sinfulness. The soul that is transformed by the grace of Christ will admire His divine character; but if we do not see our own moral deformity, it is unmistakable evidence that we have not had a view of the beauty and excellence of Christ. The less we see to esteem in ourselves, the more we shall see to esteem in the infinite purity and loveliness of our Saviour. A view of our sinfulness drives us to Him who can pardon; and when the soul, realizing its helplessness, reaches out after Christ, He will reveal Himself in power. The more our sense of need drives us to Him and to the word of God, the more exalted views we shall have of His character, and the more fully we shall reflect His image. Helplessness