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15 Minutes What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us...worship is pure or worship is base, as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the people is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep thought conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move towards our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual, but of the company of believers. Always the most revealing thing about God’s people is their idea of God, and what is the most significant message they say about Him or leave unsaid, for their silence is often more eloquent than their speech. God’s people can never escape the self- disclosure of their witness concerning God. Were we able to extract from any person a complete answer to the question, “what comes into your mind when you think about God?” We might measure with certainty the spiritual forthcoming of that person. Were we able to know exactly what our most influential teachers think of God today, we might be able with some precision to foretell where the people of God will stand tomorrow. That our thoughts of God correspond as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us. A right conception of God is basic living as according to His word. Our thoughts of God are to worship what the understanding is to the sanctuary; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. There is scarcely an error in principle or a failure in applying biblical truth that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God. Nothing changes a human being faster than a deeper understanding of who God is. God sees our thoughts to know that we have Him in our mind. And thoughts of God are the believer’s constant source of strength. The martyr languishes in the flames but his mind flies upward to God his Savior and looks forward blissfully to the glory that awaits him even as his body sinks to ashes. The imprisoned believer forgets the harsh regime of the camp, the daily grind and grueling labor, as his mind soars upward on the wings of hope to remember God. The weary teacher, struggling with unfamiliar syllables and convoluted grammar in his appointed sphere of service sees beyond the frustrations of the hours as he remembers God. The faithful group studying the word of God, entombed in their study and confronted with an agenda of reasoning to revelation of truths, brightens in their minds and feel their hearts quicken as they remember that their God sees their thoughts from above. The thought of God enlivens all actions. The thought of God should be the believer’s panacea. It should cure all ills at a stroke. And what an infinity there is in the thought of God! Nothing can approach in beauty to the idea of the true and living God. If our thoughts about God are not rising to include the higher glories of truth, then they are amounting to a moral calamity. The first step down for any person is taken when he or she surrenders truth to their opinion of God. God is not different from what He actually is; He is just so much more. Inherent in Christ’s personhood is every shade and texture and breath and aspect and heartbeat and death knell and meaning of whatever love is. And by extension, God is in His presence more expressive of the reality of the evidence of the substance that is Jesus Christ. For he is the faith in every thought that we can never adequately define or even understand it as God sees it. There is no definition that we could put to God. We could never catalog His love. God sees our every thought as a moment of awe...a reason to worship...a hope in the unbreakable promise that the best is yet to come. We must learn to experience God in a real way. The masses of adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is; and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind. Whenever we lose a right view of God, everything else gets out of perspective. Sad to say, too many are suffering from an impoverished vision of Him as a god with manlike characteristics. A god made in our image, an inversion of the truth of man made in his image. Human qualities and finite limitations have been assigned to the One who exceeds our comprehension. Our thoughts are to be that there is so much God that He is infinitely unceasingly increasing. It is to be as though we need nothing more, yet long for His continuing forthcoming revelation. Our faith is to precede full understanding as relevant biblical truth and specific passages increase the value of truth. Man can think God’s thoughts after Him but never greater. Though incomprehensible, God is knowable as we believe the truths that God has revealed about Himself. How does God see us? God sees every word. If we are a truthful and faithful people we should be comforted to know that God sees our every word. Let’s reason...we as humans have the gift of hearing. We call this the auditory component of life. Extremely beneficial in that it is to project or express what a person means. Words spoken, words heard, can deceive and delude and conceal and avoid. There can be hidden insinuations in spoken words not detected by simply hearing. What if a visual component is added. Where every word is seen in its full purpose. Might that change the way we hear the sound. Visual information offers perception whereby there is no mismatch in what is spoken, what is heard, what is seen. God seeing the word is the actual witnessing of what stimulates the information in the testimony. Nothing can stop the vision of God. Isn’t it a wonder that God not only hears our prayers...He sees them. Words are more than just accounted for. Every aspect of every word is recorded pictorially giving explicit details graphically, realistically, detailedly, forcefully, tellingly, authentically, representatively. It is a studious concern to understand what is meant by “God foresees everything”. It’s more than just being aware beforehand. It literally means “to see”, “to realize” as a development, including consequences based upon the knowledge derived and applied to ordinary reasoning and experience. Divine inspiration adds the evocation of exceptional wisdom or discernment with feeling, memory, and image to the conscious mind. When a word is spoken, every invisible corresponding effect is revealed to God. Every stimulus of a word is detected. This is what God sees. Every word spoken is seen by God to provide information related to intended or unintended consequences. God knows and sees how the power of the words of the tongue contribute to shaping lives, events, beliefs and even death. God not only sees the words we speak, He watches His own word. No spoken word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment. He sees the actual performance of His words. God watches to see if we speak His truth. He sees when we use the powerful and hope-filled words of Christ to change our perspective, our outlook and our circumstances. When we speak words of truth for the glory of God to help others, God sees the good manifested in our lives. This moves us into His divine will and abundance as He promised that His words would do in accomplishing His purposes. Our every prologue in the last days is to be a unique blessing to those who hear. These words of truth are the revelation of what Jesus sees. And God did not give it to him to tell us, God gave it to him to show things coming. God grants us the priviledge not only to speak prophetic words but to also see them as we are to offer vivid descriptions to the people. Remember, John turned to see the voice...how does God see us? God sees every deed. The eyes of the lord are in every place. His watchful eyes can see every hidden thing. Every act of obedience, great and small, all has meaning because God is watching, and we have eternal value to Him. In every deed we perform, God sees the measure of faith. God sees our actions against the idea of how Jesus would do it. We are to think with sober judgment using Jesus as our measuring line and our aspiration. The measure relates to the apportioning of our faith, for some are weak in the faith and their deeds show discord with right motives, thoughts, and words. When we are in Christ our deeds are spiritually sound. Our deeds are sanctified in Christ. Our deeds are purposed in Christ. God no longer sees our shortcomings; He sees the right doings of His own Son. In Christ God sees our deeds done in love, and He bestows upon us His abundant gifts and the riches of His grace. God sees us in Christ as an inheritor. We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. God sees these good works done, not in our own strength and for our own benefit, but by the grace of God and in obedience to Him - led by the Holy Spirit, to God’s glory. We do the first works. The beginning of our spiritual journey when we first fell in love with Jesus Christ. We possessed a great spiritual hunger. We enjoyed rich fellowship among the brethren. We had an eagerness to repent and to receive what God had for us. We cherished the Word of God. We sacrificed our former religious reputation for Jesus. We were committed to applying God’s Word to our lives. We were receptive to the power of God and to the gifts of the Spirit. We loved Jesus and the wonder-working power yoked with his name. We were quick to confess our sin and turn from our evil works. We severed all connections with a pagan past at great personal cost. We accepted the lost of relations for the sake of Christ. We were faith-filled. We were known for our love of the brethren. The first works are the works done in secret for the Lord out of our first love for Him. We don't do them for others to see. The intensity, though not diminished, must be zealously pursued. It is God who works in us to encourage us to do our utmost good. And the operations of God's grace in us are so far from excusing, that they are intended to quicken and engage our endeavors. It is love that influences our works so that they are pure and good and stand the test before God. Anything short of this is pure deception. What we do matters. Not attempting to earn salvation. We desire that the people not see us in the deeds done, but see the critical message of serving others for the glory of God. For kingdom’s life looks like service. God’s harvest depends upon the works we do. We have a work/faith ethic that is to bring others to Christ. And our deeds done are to focus our witness on Christ. All things are naked and opened to the eyes of God. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. Our trust is to be fully found in Him for He sees the wholeness of every aspect of our being from beginning to end. It is in this trust that we stand still and allow God to have His way in the affairs of our lives and that of the world. And whatever He sees of us and whenever He sees us, He sees us now as we are in Christ. God sees our motives, our thoughts, our words, our deeds, real and potential, and He knows them all at the same time. Reason faithfully with this truth – every motive, thought, word, and/or deed is for strength or weakness in the sight of God. They are either for our sobering or for our dispiriting. Our lives can be spiritually deteriorated if our consciousness of God is not present in every aspect of life. If we are not in the right atmosphere, God’s will may be secreted from us. Yet ‘His divine will’, will always be done. Our every contemplation is to be done in the truth of God with the mind of Christ. As we think about the widest context of what God sees in our motives, thoughts, words, and deeds we come to reason that each of these will be compiled for detailed understanding in the panoramic view. With that, there are two aspects of God’s way of arranging to be with us: human character transformation and divine mediation. God sees when the interaction of our motive, thought, word, and deed are in the form of spiritual maturity or formed of ignorance and lack of character. God certainly could have gotten in the face of Adam and Eve and prevented them from succumbing to Satan’s clever appeals. Instead, God arranged for them to be “on their own,” and the result was then expressed in their motive, thought, word, and deed. It was what they did. God’s allowing us to be “on our own” in order to develop character within us is an arrangement He still abides by and regards. God’s seeming absence is an exercise of His purpose. Christ is seeking to fully dwell in us and we in him. By this, God will see the fulfillment of humility, compassion, righteousness, and faith of communion by the power at work within us. Our every way will be spiritually perceptive to God. Isaiah 43:4

10 Minutes God sees every motive. The underlying reason for anything. Self deception is the weight on the scale that injects heaviness to the deceitful heart of man. So much so until man can easily fool himself about his own motives. Man can pretend that he chooses certain actions for God or the benefit of others, when in reality he has selfish reasons. God is not fooled by our selfishness and is “a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”. Human beings can operate from a variety of motivations, often negative. Pride, anger, revenge, a sense of entitlement, or the desire for approval can all be catalysts for man’s actions. Any motivation that originates in man’s sinful flesh is not pleasing to God. God even evaluates the condition of men’s hearts when we give offerings to Him. Because men’s hearts are so deceitful, we should constantly evaluate our own motives and be willing to be honest with ourselves about why we are choosing a certain action. We can even teach from impure motives just to be seen as being righteous. The heart must be guarded. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. God is interested in our motives even more than our actions. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. God wants us to know that He sees what no one else sees. He knows why we do what we do and desires to reward those whose hearts are right toward Him. We can keep our motives pure by continually surrendering every part of our hearts to the control of the Holy Spirit. Surrender is a war term. Surrendering to God means we seek His way. Our Lord is a wise and beneficent victor; He conquers us to bless us as we give Him our wholeself. If we give the outward appearance of obeying God but our hearts are hard, God knows. We are deceiving ourselves and others too. The only way we can operate from pure motives is when we “live in the Spirit”. We must ask God to search us, to try the heart. Selfishness is rooted in a sinful nature. What’s best for the all is to be the passion toward finding the truth. Know the “why” behind all things. When we do the right things for the right reasons that’s service. If we do the right things for the wrong reasons that’s selfishness. What if right values structured our motives rather than feelings. Would the acts done result in greater scrutiny. Would ulterior reasons be rejected. Would the bible take precedence over what you feel is right. When you think your ways are clean in your own eyes...consider corrective vision with what the word of God says. We should prayerfully consider our motives. Some day soon they will be there to bless us or curse us. And from them there will be no appeal, for the Judge knows. Believers will be called to account. That’s powerful in that only God knows the whole truth and He knows the full report. We should never assume our motive. We boast too much of our confidence in our knowledge. We are finite and bound by unknown limitations. In fact, our knowledge is so limited we don’t even really know ourselves. We often lack clarity about the motivations behind even our best or worst actions. We can do good things for the Lord while still harboring sinful motives; we can do lesser things that do not honor the Lord while still harboring just motives. The foremost purpose of truth is to guide the relationship between believers. How does truth manifest itself in you? Do you give up on truth out of a selfish motive? Is your persevering slow to cast doubt? Do you grant the grace of hoping or do you bear contention immediately? Love is to motivate us to assume the best rather than the worst. Love motivates us to regard others with hope rather than suspicion. Love is more than just an ideal. It is a moving force. Love moves God. It is to be our faith in God that powers our motives. It is the “why” to our “reason”. All behavior gets its true virtue from its motive. How does God see us? God sees every thought. He declares that we are seen for the Lord sees not as man sees. God sees every aspect of our minds. He looks to see our understanding. Psalms 26:3; 14:2 Thoughts are the most private parts of our human experience. No one else can know our thoughts unless we communicate them, so we tend to imagine that anything we think is safe, as long as it stays in our minds. But there is One Person who always knows and sees what we are thinking; God knows everything about us. He sees the angry thoughts, lustful thoughts, vengeful ideas, secret greed, and hidden coveting. God also sees those secret longings, hopeful desires, and private dreams and He sees them much more vividly than we do. God does not want us to hide from Him. He wants us to know that He is always there for us. Thoughts are birthed in the mind. And the mind is the language of sensing; I felt God’s was telling me; I had a sense of Gods presence...I felt, I heard, I saw. You ever have an image formed in your mind through thought? Thought is the foundation of our reasoning to truth. For as a man thinketh in his heart so God sees. When God speaks things into being, His word is virtually the same as His thought. How clearly does Christ see the thought? Matthew 21:23-27 The chief priests and the elders had no intention of submitting to the truth, they were trapped. If we say John’s baptism is “from heaven,” we will be shamed for not believing. So we can’t say that is true. If we say it’s “from man,” we will be mobbed, because they say he’s a prophet. So we can’t say that is true. So we will make up a truth. We will say, “We don’t know.” What bondage! They cannot own the truth because they are enslaved to the fear of shame and harm. And what a prostitution of the gift of thought! How seriously they thought! How carefully. Their minds were in full force. “If we say this...then that.” “But if we say that...then this.” “Ah, conclusion: we don’t know.” They thought they had escaped, not reasoning that they were dealing with the Son of God. They thought this was freedom. But God saw their process of thinking. The goal of bringing ourselves or others to a true and sin-conquering knowledge of God will never be reached by the instrument of logic alone. Jesus sent Paul on an impossible mission. He said to Paul, “I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins”. Acts 26:17-18 This is what happens when strongholds are destroyed, and arguments against the truth of God are overcome, and thoughts are taken captive for Christ. This is supernatural work. The eyes of the mind and heart do not open automatically to see the thought. Logic alone cannot bring it about. That’s why Paul said, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit”. This is the mind, the heart, the sequence of thought that God sees. I Corinthians 12:3 How wonderfully like the mind of Christ we by faith can think. God gives us access to knowledge gained by exacting observation of careful thought. God sees our thoughts as we study the truth that we see in the bible by God’s grace that will be our life. In reasoning with God, we have lines of thoughts that God sees as patterns and relationships between faith and truth not because someone is telling us what to see, but because the Holy Spirit is telling us to look, look, look. What wonderful new elements of truth are revealed when God sees our thoughts. God, seeing our thoughts and having the Holy Spirit benefit our learning, teaches us to see the life we should live from God’s perspective. We all have free will to make choices. It is to our advantage to choose God’s way of thinking and doing...a godly perspective; so that we can experience the life and purpose of God in our personal life. We make decisions based on our thoughts and inclinations. God is not a manipulator of thoughts. His will, His desire for us as believers is to allow His word to determine the way we think. He is teaching us how to think like Him. He sees the renewing, the transforming of our minds to build us up in holiness, in faith, in love, in obedience. What an awesome blessing...the love of God toward us through His Word. God is a Spirit. We are not in the form of God. But in truth, as God sees our thought, He sees His image. How so completely our God sees us! Psalms 19:14 We ask that the holy affections offered up to God in these services for the glory of God in praise and the edification of others in prayer be acceptable in His sight. Some may say, oh, this is just so obvious. He’s God, of course He sees everything. But what is the significance of God seeing our thoughts. God is performing a sanctifying work in us. And that starts from the inside out. If God is going to change our attitudes and inclinations so that we conform more closely to Christ, He needs to see what needs to be changed. He sees our thoughts of pride, our fear, anger, and all the inclinations and potential decisions that are welling up from us. His Spirit guards our lips, so that an internal thought or emotion does not get expressed and causes harm to another. But God could not do this if He could not see the thought that was about to come out of our mouth. I smile because God could have changed that deep down in the heart, but for reasons of His own, He sanctifies us in various ways, and one of the ways is this: He saw that thought coming and for the good He kept it from the mouth.

15 Minutes We are like Christ in this world. We will not be afraid on the day when people are judged. Everything in our faith is built upon the person and work of Jesus Christ. Our bodies do not belong to us. How we use our body and our mind reveal what we believe. We exercise honest assessment in reality of every experience. Our entire life is characterized by a sense of contrition, a repentant heart. God knows us far better than we do, and He makes abundant provision for our care. God grants us an endless supply of forgiveness, restoring, encouraging, and empowering grace. Because we are in this fight of faith together, we can keep encouraging and exhorting one another every day to press on so that none of His becomes hardened in deceitful, habitual sin. And with submission graced by the knowledge of Christ we know what we think we know. That’s why it’s crucial that our functional knowing aligns with our doctrinal knowing. God loves us with such incredible love that we experience extraordinary, life- changing events, mercy, and compassion not only from Him, but from those who are His. And He wants us to show that love to others. It’s a reminder of how God loves us, all that Jesus is to us: relentlessly, completely, and without expectation of return. God is our perfect Father and He has a perfect purpose for us. Our traits and abilities make us unique. God gives us certain experiences to help us grow and to use these abilities. He gives us the strength of faith to overcome the challenges we’ll encounter in this life. There must be something special about all of us that made God choose us. That thing that is so special is not that God chose us but that we choose Him. It is our response to His love, His mercy, His grace that He foreknew allowing Him to declare us to be His elect. There is something most impressive about us that serves as criterion to warrant God’s selection...we come to God. We come to consider His wise counsel in reasoning with our every inquiry. We come because we are convinced of His truth. We come because we know that He knows us. Let me put it the way God Himself put it. “For I know them, that they will command themselves and theirs and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment”. Genesis 18:19 God chose us simply because He had a purpose for us, and He wanted to fulfill His purposes through those who choose to be faithful to Him. God didn’t choose everyone equally. This wasn’t a democratic vote. This was a choice of determination based upon the wisdom of counsel. God set His love on the worst of sinners to show how much His grace can change a person. We are like no other. Let’s circle back to the foundation of the world. God knew that we would be holy and without blame before Him “in love”. Emphasis on the “in love”. And this knowledge brought God great pleasure. Thank God that there is no tension between foreknowledge and the exercise of free will. God is omniscient and hence in possession of perfect foreknowledge and yet God has given us free will. God knows that we will freely choose Him in all things. He knew the reality of this before it was real. We’re not especially savable or lovable. The reality is that, left to ourselves, none of us would have turned from our sins and believed. But God worked in our hearts that we would. He chose us and drew us to faith, and so everything about our salvation is a gift from God. That gives us hope in sharing our faith with others because God can save anyone. And it gives us hope for ourself because we can trust that whatever God has started, we can be assured He’ll finish. It is God that has set us apart. And it is God that commands us to be holy. To be holy means at its core to “be set apart.” God is holy. He is set apart because He is perfect and without any sin. To stay morally perfect, He can’t have anything to do with imperfection. He has to stay set apart. So, He told us, “we have to be perfect too.” That’s His requirement for His people everywhere. If we want to be in the presence of God, we need to be like Christ. We need to be perfect. How many of us are perfect? Not one! How many sins does it take to no longer be perfect? Well, how many losses does it take to break a team’s perfect record? Just one. This is what the bible means when it tells us, “for whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all”. Adam and Eve were created “very good”. They lost that creative stature and brought upon all creation an onslaught of trouble. There is a difference between “very good” and “perfect”. Perfect has nothing lacking. The reason God didn’t create them perfect from the beginning, was that creation had to go under probation, even after the creation of mankind. There was yet another element that had to be attained, which required the collaboration of man. This detail is apparent , God’s purpose appears to have the intention of creating man “according to the image and to the likeness” of Himself. When He eventually created man, He made man in His image. And this is where the formula of perfection is hidden: Man, having been created “according to God’s image” was “very good”. But, when man becomes “according to God’s likeness”, he would then be on a course towards perfection. Let’s reason why God commands that we be “made perfect”. In the image of, signifies man’s ability as a free and intelligent creature, to be similar to God. But, after, which is to follow on in the likeness of, signifies man’s course towards the attainment of this simulation, which can only be achieved through the collaboration of man and the Holy Spirit. Given that God is what He is, because He wants to be, and not because He is compelled to, man must likewise “want to”, must attempt to, through use of his freedom as “the image of” and his knowledge, reach perfection; in other words, seek the course towards becoming “after the likeness of God.” This is a characteristic that man alone has, in all of creation. God is intending for us to reach the unity of the faith and the awareness of the Son of God, thus becoming perfect, to that measure of maturity of the fullness of Christ. To reason with and understand that truth is to nowhere refer to the perfection as acquiring incorruptibility and immortality. In the image of God, after the likeness of God, we are to be like Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God. Please hear this matter-of-factly...reason is the highest faculty bestowed on man by his Creator. We not only gain access to more knowledge, but to deeper understanding and greater wisdom whereby we acquire truth. Let’s reason with being like Jesus. Our path towards perfection was set by the Lord Jesus Christ, because this is what will lead us to becoming “after the likeness” of God. Is our being perfect referring to the infinitely perfect God? To reach Him is definitely impossible. But we can draw nearer to Him, from now through all eternity, becoming more and more according to His likeness. Study the scripture where we, like no other, are changed into the same image. Perfection is not a destination point. It is a non-stop course for God’s people who are like no other. Remember, it is in reasoning that God brings us to the revelation of the reality of truth. The reality is, that the creation of mankind was perfected. It was upon the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one, like no other, appeared in a state of perfection. Jesus Christ was the only man who was actually perfect. In His person, mankind had found the fulfillment of God’s purpose for it: “let’s create man...after our likeness.” And please just think about this...we were made in the similitude of God...and cursed. When we become like the perfection of Christ, the results will have an impact on all of creation, which will undergo a change in order that God’s plan and His creation be fulfilled, not only for the sake of man, but also for the sake of creation. This is our study for the last days...our preparation for the things to come, that render it necessary that we, this day, must be like no other, made perfect in Christ. For the earnest expectation of creation eagerly anticipates the revelation of the sons of God. For even creation shall be freed from the bonds of deterioration, into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Here is how we are being so blessed in being brought to be like Christ. God entered our world in the person of Jesus. He lived the perfect life we could not. Gave that perfect life to us, and then on the cross took the punishment that ought to have been ours. And after Jesus died for our sins, his resurrection assures us that he really is who he claimed to be. He was like no other. He is the Son of God. God provided a way for us to be holy and perfect through Jesus. God came to do for us what He purposed in Himself, in Christ, that we might be reconciled unto Him, not counting our sins against us, making us perfect. Jesus is the most inclusive person that could ever be. There is no being for whom he did not live, die, and rise. Someone just needs to tell someone about this Jesus. Jesus is the most exclusive person in all of history. No one can go to God except by him. Jesus is the only Savior who could have lived in our place. We are like no other. We can be complete in Christ. We are who God says we are. Deuteronomy 7:6 Let’s make this testimony. There is none like us in the universe. And among the us there are those who are God’s and they are like no other. The universe’s end will come once God’s purpose of events on earth has been completed. This reasonably tells us that there is no other program taking place simultaneously elsewhere in the universe. God’s elect are unique as God intended, and maintaining that understanding serves to magnify our love for God and our awe of His works. God has no ordinary people. We are serious about life. We know of the infinite joy that is offered us. Our faith is like no other faith. We have handed ourself over to God, and it must follow that we are obedient to Him. Not in a new way, a less worried way because we trust Him. Not doing things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save us already. Not hoping to get to heaven as a reward for our acts, but inevitably striving to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of heaven is already inside of us. We are like no other because we see the same truth that God sees, we share the same truth that God shares. Truth is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others. We never ask God why we are like no other. We never ask God why we must endure. We are promised sufferings. They are purposed. So, to us, You need utter no answer. For we know that You are Yourself the answer. You called us because You knew we would be calling to You. In these last days God will have a great and strong people appearing, such as never existed in ages past. None like these have ever been gathered before. God’s spirit will be so accessible, that what God is doing and what decisions they should make in their lives will be by divine inspiration. With prophetic wisdom and illumination, we will be God’s spokespersons. Transformed by everything that Jesus has shared with us, we will embody the promises of God. Our characters will pattern such a life of faith as to be no more servants but friends of Christ, because he has made known to us everything that he has heard from his Father. We will be true. Jesus, pouring forth the mysteries of his Father in the intimacy and trust of transformative love, is sufficient to preserve us during the worst days this world has ever known. Our lives will be in God’s hand and nothing can keep us from accomplishing His purposes. As devastating as the trials, the tribulation, the persecution, the suffering will be, God would never leave the world without His witnesses. We must live this day with the knowledge that God will lift His hand of protection from everything in the world except for His few chosen ones. And yet, knowing this we are to continue inviting people to come to Him and receive His grace. Except for the very few who remain ever faithful to God, heaven and earth will be set infinitely apart. God’s people will see truth. Opinions will be of no avail. God’s people will come to know oneness when the deep meaning of truth is the mind's essential peace. We will come directly into harmony with reality. Our enlightenment means entering truth. And this truth is beyond extension. It is as the impact of a single thought in ten thousand years. God affords us a glorious and vivid illustration of what happens in the final days. The reason we are like no other is to do what Jesus did when he went to the cross. He made an open show of the enemy triumphing over them. We are to so completely disarm the enemy that the people in the world will see the gates of heaven open to them.

Our joy is our sorrow unmasked. So let me first say, our indomitable joy in Jesus in the midst of suffering and sorrow is the flavor of our message. And that the selfsame well from which our triumph and exaltation rises will be filled with our tears. So we will end this writing with this truth – “it is well with my soul”. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into our being, the more joy we can contain. Is not the cup that holds our sorrow the very cup that is being burned in the potter’s oven? And it is not the word that soothes our spirit alone, it is also the very wood, the very word, that was carried to Calvary. When we are joyous, look deep into our heart and there shall be found only that which has given us the richness of bittersweet things experienced for which we have no regret. When we are sorrowful, look again in our heart, and there shall be that truth we are weeping for and mourning over that can bring repentant delight over particular sins, that others may be forgiven who have come to see through the ministry of God's Word, through God's Spirit, and through God's people, the joy of returning to the Father. There is no struggling in our crying. We are now faced with situations that highlight the fragility of life, and the burden we are to carry for every soul truly lights a fire with us. The truth of our testimony must quicken our pace and strengthen our resolve, to bring the word as it is life eternal to those who will hear and who unexpectedly realize that perhaps time is not as unlimited as they once thought it was. With the word they can reason to move forward intentionally with a newly found perspective. Life is suspended in time as we encounter moments of sorrow and joy. It is in the sanctuary, in the scales of mercy and truth, where we empty self and find balance between our sorrow and our joy. It is here where the treasure-keeper lifts us to weigh His gold and His silver. God has a people who will live with joy as great sorrow comes and will cope in times of terrible suffering, even as we support others who are suffering and sorrowing, not yet knowing the joy of peace. That is why the Holy Spirit is teaching us truth, hard truth, that we may live what we have learned. We will walk with joy in sorrow for Christ’s sake. We will cry, we will laugh, and we will spiritually and truthfully worship God. This is God making perfect those inner character qualities. Our every joy, our every sorrow will be based upon spiritual realities. That is why the Feast of Tabernacles is taught to us, that we may not base life on material conditions. It hearkens us to remember that God’s people must be wilderness minded. We are to ignore the false substitutes for joy – worldly good times based upon worldly motives. These sources do not produce joy, they don't, at least in the biblical sense. Such substitutes as self-pity, unthankfulness, pouting, are worldly weeds to choke out fruitful seed. God’s people think biblically, not confrontationally, we do not kick against the sorrow. Jeremiah 30:11-17 God has built into the world, sorrow as a natural result of sin, especially for the believer who has the Holy Spirit convicting him and a conscience that can be triggered by God's Word...look what's possible. Jesus does not promise to exempt us from sorrow. But when we embrace the truth of the word of God there is this power deep inside that in the midst of trials and agony and tears, produces joy. Joy that denies sorrow is neither hard-won, nor true, nor eternal. God’s people are never to hide their heart from sorrow. We have hope enough to remain open to expected encounters with joy because we are a people of the promise. A people shaped in the image of the God whose very Being generates all joy in the universe, yet who also weeps and grieves its brokenness. So we, God’s children, are also at liberty to lament souls being lost, even as we simultaneously rejoice in the hope of their's and our coming restoration. As the dead breathe out the last breath, we who are dying to sin, breathe out sorrow, to breathe in joy. And in the very now that is, our hearts cross with Jesus as he was a man who bore our grief, and carried our sorrows for the joy that was set before him. Because, in truth we reason with God to receive the revelation of His determination for things to come, we come together in the experience of knowing the sorrowful time and events that are now, yet always rejoicing. The people who are seeking God look up often to the stars to see the greatness and the grandeur of God over their heads like galaxies of hope. We are to help them taste from the plate. And in the truth we put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, imprisonments, labors, deprivation, hunger by showing purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand toward all. In the patience of God’s timing our spirits will not be broken. We will be the paradox to the world. Through dishonor and slander, we will show honor and praise to God. As dying daily, they will behold God’s grace as we live because Christ is our life. As punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet being and making many rich in faith; as having nothing, yet possessing everything, we will continually abide in the power of the Holy Spirit, speaking the truth. We are a tiny movement following a crucified and risen King. Brothers and sisters, there will be countless times that our hearts will break. But we are known by God, and that is what counts. God has a work for us to do. And we do nothing for earthly comfort or ease. We sorrow because our kinsmen are perishing in unbelief, cutting themselves off from Jesus. We strive to share the truth as it is the truth, praying that they respond to the wooing of the Holy Spirit. Possibly it is that we are not yet pleading with them with the grace of tears that they may see the tracks of pain in wanting so badly for them to believe and be a follower of Jesus with us. We want us all to have eternal life. We want us to be with Christ forever together. We can hardly bear the thought of losing any. It makes the stones on the breastplate exceedingly heavy on the heart. The world has never seen such a display of love as will be expressed in the midst of sorrow by God’s elect. For we know that we are the fruit of our Lord’s sufferings. We thank God for the strength of the truth. For it is by His goodness that the sentiment of our sorrow is turned to repentance, rendering “godly sorrow” that creates in us an intense hatred of sin and a strong determination to purge ourselves from any and all fellowship that yields to works of darkness. Sound wisdom, sanctifying our influence, confines us to faith. We are as stars in the constellation of promises with weeping sparkles of hope for this time, sorrowing in the expediency of his absence that we may bring to Christ his due compensation, and are to be so satisfied with it that we patiently wait, and quietly joy in his soon appearing. The truth teaches us expressly that this sorrow is changed into joy. Not exchanged for joy, but actually transmuted, so that the grief becomes joy, the cause of sorrow becomes the source of rejoicing. Wherein is the essence of our joy? What were it to us if Christ saved all the rest of mankind and we be not redeemed unto God by his blood? We might have been glad from sheer humanity that others should be benefited, but what would have been our deep regret to be ourselves excluded from the grace. Now how blessed is the joy that we are not excepted. Our hearts know joy because of his atoning agonies. What a peaceful joy to know that through Christ we are reconciled to God. By the putting away of sin, by the salvation of his chosen, and by the vindication of his Father, our joy is uttermost secured beyond anything that was known before or since; for here the very heart of God is laid open to His justice and His love. Our joy is our Christ of God. We must proclaim the word...we must attend the Word. We expect suffering, sorrow, but Jesus is the joy of our consolation. This joy is to work holiness in us as we develop a keener sense of accountability for those around us. We will not be deprived of this joy. It will be the means of our loving them more, praying more for them, and seeking more their good, and we will be the better qualified to do them real service and to lead them to our Lord. We know we will have to bear a little persecution, hard words, and the cold shoulder, but it will serve us to become more like him. We are fully persuaded that the truth of Christ is the joy of our triumph. For we make known all the full truth of a matter. That’s why the world’s joy will be turned into sorrow. Even so will it be that the wicked will curdle into grief. The wine of their transgression will sour into the gripping vinegar of remorse, and will dissolve the souls of those who would not come to reason with God in truth. Joy does not protect us from sorrow, but it certainly enables us to benefit from sorrow. It softens it, sweetens it, and helps us to focus on the hope that endures in the midst of every sorrow as God proves again and again that He is alway with us. The depth of our spiritual awakening is very much connected to the amount of darkness and pain we will go through. God’s souls that evolve to the elect will endure a lot of suffering and much sorrow. We study the truth, that we might know the darkness, that we might become the light for others. Suffering is universal, sorrowing is individual. Both are a strengthening and purifying experience when combined with faith. The suffering teaches us obedience. The sorrowing teaches us humbleness. When we suffer because we sin, we repent. When we sorrow because we sin, we repent. By both we are drawn closer to our Jesus. Our joy of sorrow is real in the very depths of our soul. This joy gives us “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,” to keep our heart and mind through Christ Jesus. Having the joy of sorrow proves the reality of our faith, and we make our conviction attractive to others. Because of Jesus we have a matter for joy, a motive for joy, a measure of joy and because of Christ we have a greater remainder of joy yet to be realized. We have a heritage of joy that as yet we have not entered upon; but it is ours by a covenant of blood, the covenant of perpetual obligation, and none can break the sacred settled inheritance. God’s people are a joyfilled people, a blessed people. We be numbered among them! Jesus enters into our sorrows. And Jesus creates our joys. Our eyes grow dim in his absence, and our sorrow is long even before the troubles actually come, but in our readiness for his return our faces are lighted with joy. We accept our sorrows as coming straight from God. Therein is why the bitterness concerning our trials is but a shadow of what the worse could be. Jesus, on the cross, felt untold numbers of deaths as he died as one. Our sorrow will be for many that they will not come soon enough to fear God in wisdom. When we hear His truth not believed, when some undermine His invitation to come, when we see those forsaking the unity of truth, we sorrow. And the time is soon that we will not be able to go to meet them. The more we love, the more the cost of sorrow. Jesus knows that ours is not a causeless grief. He justifies our sorrow because it touches him. He will remove it. We have to go meet the bridegroom. So, we are to joy in the ones who come now. The Word of God empowers much adaptability to the peculiarities of all His people. You ever notice how a specific text is meant specially for you. God’s word is the key that unlocks every aspect of our lives. The key is perfectly fitted for the individual to touch the out-of-the-way, singular, special, peculiar, idiosyncrasy of sorrow. We’ve read where Jesus said, “and ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” Christ’s words make it effectual and that covers the sorrow and covers all our wounds; for though we do not see him again just yet, yet he is still seeing us. His Divine Spirit can now so effectually apply the comforts of the Word that it shall not be said, we ought to rejoice, but, we shall rejoice. Notice how Christ deals with the inmost core of our being, our hearts. Do we not know what this experience is, beloved brothers and sisters? I pray we do. Sometimes, we cannot tell our joy, it is too deep; it is so excessive that words and noise of any kind seem quite out of place. So, we want to get alone, and in the silence of our soul to sit still before the Lord, and just take in the full draughts of His love and hearing him say, “I will see you again, and our heart shall rejoice.” God’s people have different pleasures, higher joys than the world. Many who cannot see the truth today are not because they are blind. It is because they live where light is being rejected. But what is worse is that when presented with light, they declare that there is no such thing as light, for they say that they never saw it. Here the sorrow becomes locked in the bosom. Bitter ought to be our regret that ever we should have wandered from the path of right. But all is turned into joy when we know that now the Savior has finished the atoning work. It is so in our joy that we are given the Holy Spirit for if Jesus himself was here we could not all get at him. So we are content with present joys as we prepare to be with him. We will be under very severe afflictions. The more the enemy persecutes us, the more deep, the more high our joy becomes. We will sing in our sighs and rejoice in our mournings; only let us wait and be patient. It is well with my soul...

6 Minutes Faith is not what we cling to when we do not know truth, faith is the knowledge of truth nourished by good acts. It is strengthened by witnesses capable of penetrating our very souls and culminates in the palpable fruits of sure and certain experience. Reason with this very important passage - faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is not only evidence, it’s the real thing. We don’t just hope that unseen substances are real. Faith is substance, it is evidence; the evidence God gives us by many witnesses; the evidence we give to each other; and what we evidence in our own lives. Faith is the substance of an anchor to our souls that we might always abound in good works. The anchor of faith is itself anchored in the embodied God whose existence is not established by proposition but whose literal existence itself grounds our knowledge of Him. He only is the God who is spirit who became flesh. Arise and come forth and witness this by faith! Faith in Him is in every sense truth. It is true that in this life we must live by faith. We are consigned to live by faith in the presence of our God. The purpose of life is to be proven even as we prove God’s promises. The test of life is to do the will of our God. Faith is not the part of the test designed to make it difficult to return to Him; it is what our God has given us to make it possible to return to Him. The trial of faith is not to see what we will do without Him but to see what we can do with Him. We are asked to live by faith not so much to pass the test of being on our own but because we need to learn things of eternal and enduring import. We must learn to know how to respond as witnesses. We must learn to know in the very important way that faith makes it possible to know; something that might not develop otherwise in God’s presence. We must live by faith. For this we are to be most grateful, because to live by faith is to live in Christ with God. We must be clear in our vision as we pursue and proclaim truth. Let it be the word of God and the truth of the word alone that protects us from crisis in our faith occasioned by the precepts of men. Let us ascend to divine revelation, credible evidence of truth, approach to faith by the authority of God, persevere in the function of the will. Wonderfully revealed truth harmonizes with the intimacy of our faith. It is far in excess of what we have right to expect. In this, as in all else, God has been more than just, He has been generously bountiful to His creatures. This is why faith is an act of virtue of free obedience to God; this, finally, is the reason of its sovereign certitude. Although faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Faith pleases God. Reasoning with God whitens the darkness of sin. In our ceasing to sin, is God’s pleasure of creation. And for this same reason since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, and God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. Faith, it is clear, must embrace at least implicitly every truth that God has revealed, for the motive of faith, the authority of God, applies equally to them all. So, why we must faith the truth...the buildings established for worship today are filled with people who hold to a faith that does not save. Theirs is a dead faith, a mere empty profession. Lack of knowledge, of understanding to test or examine themselves to see if they were truly in the faith is rejected. They know not how to put their faith to the test of truth to make sure they have not been deceived. But how can they determine truth from empty faith? There are some people who just seem to do good. They can be religious, moral, honest, and forthright in their dealings with others. They may seem to be grateful, loving, kind and tenderhearted toward others. They have visible virtues and an external morality. But do they have a sincere love for God? Do the things they do involve God? There are people who possess an intellectual understanding and knowledge of the truth. They know who Jesus is and that he is coming again. They’ve seen the Holy Spirit at work. They tread underfoot the blood of Christ by not believing what they know to be true. These are waiting for Christ to come. Yet, that which is most necessary, they lack...faith in the truth as revealed by the Holy Spirit. The truth does not change. The revelation of truth has always been available to those who want to believe. The truth is Jesus and Jesus is the key to open all truth. Getting insight and understanding from the Spirit of truth is vital to handling the word of truth correctly. There are few, very very few who know how to rightly divide the word of truth. Many are not a shame of the truth, they are a shame because they know not how to keep a straight course in the word to come to the truth. The biggest misconception is that opinion counts. Truth is objectively knowable, not subjective, and no, the scriptures can't be interpreted any way we want. They prefer to reject deeper study by reason. Our studies should be diligent, not only to defend our faith in truth, but also to determine what is worth defending, and what is just a distraction. Willing ignorance, we must leave alone. The bible is to be understood in its entirety, in its context. Every passage has a relationship. The bible provides a basis for making decisions. That’s why people are reluctant to reason the truth of the bible. Once it’s searched, and brought to conclusion there is no picking which parts of it influence you. Our assurance rests upon a ground more secure than all human science, upon the infallible authority of God. Had God so willed, He might have communicated His testimony directly to each member of the human race as soon as we were capable of receiving it. But last of all in these days hath spoken to us by His Son. And we in turn, are to deliver it to God's chosen people. God's message must be authenticated, His messenger must present his credentials. God knows them that are His. We keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

8 Minutes With true faith, we receive the promise of Christ and respond in obedience to the Lord’s word, knowing with certainty it is truth. In what sense is faith judged in terms of truth? Contrast faith with reason. Reason is the motive, the purpose and intention of truth. Reason is the pretext for recognizing and revealing reality, and faith gives the direction in which this revelation may be exercised. Reason is involved in the search for knowledge relating to the mind and to reality. Reason reveals truth and is the precondition of faith; faith is the act in which reason reaches ecstatically beyond itself. Reason is the presupposition of faith, and faith is the fulfillment of reason. Faith, as found in Christ, is determined reality because the divine authority guarantees its truth. It is the truth that we all try to reach, truth in the sense of the “really real”. And it is our faith that stands under judgment when truth is revealed. The only infallible truth of faith, the one in which the ultimate itself is unconditionally manifest, is that any truth of faith stands under a yes-or-no judgment. The infallible truth of faith is revealed in God’s sanctuarial service. The elemental powers of decision were evidenced by the Urim and the Thummim. Otherwise known as “light” and “perfection”, invoked by the High Priest of the sanctuary. When presented to the Lord in prayer, the Urim and Thummim would miraculously illuminate with an answer. Indicative of God taking control of the decision process and outcome. Exodus 28:30 The urim and thummim, by which the will of God was made known by enquiry, shadowed the invitation of reason that God in these last days makes known Himself and His mind to us. Divine revelation centers in Him, and comes to us through Him; He is the light, the true light, the faithful witness, the truth itself, and from Him we receive the Spirit of truth, who leads into all truth. As God grants greater illumination upon His word we are brought to more perfect truth. Inspiration and revelation open the door to the truth that a scripture is not limited to just words. The scriptures can be Urim and Thummim to assist each of us to receive personal revelation. By this means, we obtain access to what God would have us know. The criterion contains a yes; it does not reject any truth of faith in whatever form it may appear in the hearing of faith, and it contains a no; it does not accept any truth of faith. Principle shows to be reality in the cross of the Christ. The premise of all truth is that a glorious restoration of faith must take place in our time because we are to aid in God’s purpose to remove relative darkness, ignorance, and error from the people. We are in the time when God is blessing with periods of greater truth and brighter light. He is giving us full light of day for special consideration in His leniency for the fulness of time. This changes everything. Isaiah 29:14 Apostasy is being incorporated into man’s ideas and philosophies they think prevalent in this day. Their religion has gone significantly further wrong in large part because of those ideas and presuppositions. The word of God is the only way to redefine and redeem their understanding of faith, reason, knowledge, and truth in ways that liberate them from the trouble the world is bringing to the souls of so many. The loss of the understanding of the true nature of God, their unbelief in the authority of God, their abandoning the special witness of the Holy Spirit leads to the loss of the fulness of the gifts of the Spirit and thus of their own nature and purpose. These are the characteristics that bear directly on their experience and understanding of faith, reason, knowledge, and truth. We must faith the truth in the hope that these will hear and return to God. What I say here will be incomplete, but I hope not misleading. God has chosen a special people to enter into discussions of faith and reason which have suffered in these last days because they have not been informed by comprehension of the truths of the word of God. When so informed, faith is seen in a new light. And in turn, the proper understanding of faith and reason casts new light on common understandings of knowledge and truth. While in matters of faith, knowledge, and truth, reason is deployed to present serious challenge to man’s fallible understanding. Reason attempts to reconcile the life-changing power of faith with the compelling persuasive power of truth. Reason is the approach upheld by faith ultimately leading to a higher understanding of knowledge. Reason leads to the certainty of essential truth. Reason tells us that God's revealed word is credible, and in accordance with her advice we freely and unreservedly submit ourselves to the guidance of His Truth. If we would truly reason with every word of God, how powerful and persuasive would faith be in the enlightenment of the mind to logically come to truth impossible to doubt. And losing all vulnerability to doubt, faith would come to be understood as a certainty of both evidence and substance. In fact, faith, in a very real sense, comes to be that truth which one believes in the face of doubt. Might it be said that reason and logic ultimately ground knowledge and truth, whereas faith is what we are obliged to rely on when we lack irrefutable certainty. Faith, on this view, is a sort of positive thinking, what we cling to when we want to know what we do not know. Faith in truth characterizes the lives of thoughtful persons. And the more we know, the less faith we need. The purpose of reasoning with God is to see the evidence of truth that fulfills the hope of our being found in the will of God being obedient in all ways to His word. God is the object of our faith. Faith is not something we settle for in the absence of knowledge. It is a type of knowledge, sure and trustworthy and eminently attainable. It is our trusting in the God that we cannot at this time see and our knowing that the things He has promised He will do. We are told to have the faith of Jesus in the most severe time of trouble as did he in the trial time of the ages...the cross. Did God need faith to know that His Son would look to Him to uphold His promise? God sees all and knows all from all eternity. So, God didn’t need to have faith. He knew... What is meant by “we must faith the truth”? Did Jesus have the evidence and the hope that God would do what He promised? And if we mix that up, we have a faulty understanding of what biblical faith, biblical truth really is. SOP - The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father’s acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish that the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father’s wrath upon Him as the sinner’s substitute, that made the cup He drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God.—Ibid., p. 753. {CTr 277.4} Amid the awful darkness, apparently forsaken of God, Christ had drained the last dregs in the cup of human woe. In those dreadful hours He had relied upon the evidence of His Father’s acceptance heretofore given Him. He was acquainted with the character of His Father; He understood His justice, His mercy, and His great love. By faith He rested in Him whom it had ever been His joy to obey. And as in submission He committed Himself to God, the sense of the loss of His Father’s favor was withdrawn. By faith, Christ was victor.—Ibid., p. 756. {CTr 277.5} God’s people are to enrich our faith and expand our view of knowledge and truth by reasoning. It is a wonder of what we cling to when we do not know. We are to seek learning by study. Faith is like the seed of truth; alive, growing, pushing upward. The first stirring of faith is to have a desire to believe. The seed is the true word of God...it is Christ. The word swells our souls, and we know that it has sprouted up, when our understanding begins to be enlightened, and our mind begins to magnify. Reason is this entire process whereby we begin to experience the fruits of truth and to know one thing and then another by faith. Faith leads us to a knowledge as sure and as perfect as any we could ever want. Faith could not become knowledge unless it already were knowledge. Faith comes by hearing the Word. It is not hearing the enticing words of man's wisdom, but hearing the word of God, that will befriend faith, and hearing it as the word of God. And if the word be not in the Son of God, then there is no Christ. Faith is anchored in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the knowledge of Him is both sure and possible. Faith is a discernible and undeniable experience. It is not the sense of coming to an end. It is a sense of being sure in the word of God, nothing lacking. So, faith in God to reason is to bring a question or argument to a close in truth. Reasoning teaches the role of scripture and prayer. We must know when something is a case and when something is a fact. A case is a circumstance, a situation, an occasion. A fact is an actual reality. Remember that our faith is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in a person is a very different thing from faith that some proposition is true. If premises are true, then reason will take you to truth. Once we know what is true, reason provides a wonderful tool for sorting out obligations, anticipating consequences, and persuading others that what we know is true. Truth can be rendered reasonable. The truth of the word itself rests on the occurrence of events. There was a man, Jesus, or there was not; he overcame the whole of sin and darkness in the garden or he did not; the tomb was empty or it was not. The truth of an event is very different from the truth of a proposition. The truth of propositions is established by debatable suggestions. The truth of events is established by witnesses. Because of the word of God we are blessed with an abundance of witnesses; ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me; but ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth; this Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses; and we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree: not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead; and without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. God’s true and faithful believers have an embarrassment of riches where scripture is concerned to witness to the truth of God.

6 Minutes We need to come to the full knowledge of the truth and have the faith of the truth. As those who are saved by believing into Christ, we need to have a full knowledge of the truth; we need to be saved and come to the full knowledge of the truth, having a full acknowledgement and appreciation of the reality of all the spiritual and divine things that we have received through faith. Amen! There is a great emphasis in the word of God on the matter of truth; being constituted with the truth, knowing the truth, speaking the truth, coming to the full knowledge of the truth, and walking in the truth. Truth is more than life as it is in Christ. He loved in truthfulness for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever. Today we are in a warfare, in a battle over the truth; in the cultural systems there are many things infused into the minds of the people that are not the truth, and society is permeated with lies and denying the truth. We are in warfare over the truth both for ourselves and for others; we must be armed with the truth and come to the full knowledge of the knowledge of it. This doesn’t mean that we need to promote a certain doctrine or fight for a doctrine; the truth is more than doctrine, it is the divine reality whose essence is the Triune God Himself conveyed by His Word. We need to fight for the truth, coming to the full knowledge of the truth and speaking the truth, seeking to bring all. For even some of the most basic principles in the scriptures are being denied. We stand firm, solidly, like a pillar; we will not compromise the truth anymore but rather, our living will be in the light and our walk will be in the truth, having the truth constituted into our being to protect God’s interests. If the truth is wrought into us and constituted into our being, we will be made able to safeguard the interests of the riches of God’s divinity and the attainments of His consummation. The world wants to usurp us and misuse us, deceive us and misinform us concerning the truth. We need the great and high wall with the strong gates of truth to keep out that which attempts to violate and to allow in, that which magnifies. We must keep coming to God’s word that we be imbued with His truth. God offers us the complete revelation of the truth if we but come to Him to reason. We need to know the truth in a full way, having a thorough apprehension of the truth having received it through faith. God chose us from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. On one hand, God selected us in the sanctification of the Spirit, and on the other, in the belief of the truth. For us to be sanctified in the belief of the truth, the faith of the truth, is something very subjective. Faith is the substantiation of the things unseen; faith is our reaction to the unseen scenery. When we see the truth, we are to react by believing it. When we hear the truth and reason the truth, we learn the truth having the hearing of faith. We don’t just come to the truth in a mental way. The spirit works to transform us into the image of Christ by exercising our spiritual experiences. There is a dawning in God’s people where they represent themselves as bearers of the real truth, not leaning to what favors our personal interests and preferences. Believers with the bible in hand do not number themselves among the surprised. Half-truths, subtle deception, and disinformation from the beginning, is still the fruit of the tree. As believers, our concern for truth, in times of shameless deception, is not just principled; it’s personal. We care about truth, and resolve to speak truth, despite its costs. It demands our highest and deepest allegiance. Our concern “for truth” is a derivative of reason. It is not secondary. We have come to know the higher truth, the deeper truth, the personal truth who gives meaning and value to all other truths, and makes some claims true, and others false. Apart from Jesus, the seemingly dignified plea for truth soon devolves into another language game. Faith in the word of God is particularly insistent on Christ, as divine Son, not only being true, but the truth. In Christ, we will never be done marveling that God chose to make Himself known, finally and ultimately, in a real, historical man. Jesus is the truth, because he embodies the supreme revelation of God. He himself “narrates” God, says and does exclusively what the Father gives him to say and do, indeed he is properly called “God.” He is God’s gracious self-disclosure, His “Word,” made flesh. So rich is faith to be in truth that we find that not only is Christ himself “the Truth,” but the message about him and how he saves is the truth. God has a new-covenant people He refers to as the household of God. These are a pillar and buttress of the truth which God Himself builds. We are to do more than preserve truth, we are to advance truth with the defining message of the One who is the Truth. The pursuit and telling and upholding of truth is no mere matter-of-fact concern. It is the primary conviction of faith. It is a worship concern, stemming from our ultimate allegiance. This faithing the truth gives us right standing with God. Truth is our pursuit not because it serves our own interests, but because Jesus is our God. He makes all truth to be true. We are to never allow anyone to turn our pursuit of truth upside down by rallying us to their focus while we keep quiet about what the bible says. Our professing of truth is not speculative or secondhanded. We know the man Jesus. And without complexity, confusion, or spin, these other things we do know...we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth... we know the truth, and the truth shall make you free... we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him...and hereby know we the spirit of truth. We are not just professors of truth, but witnesses, personal witnesses, to him and his work in us. It must be our personal testimony that neither is there neglect in the cause of truth, which at once inspires both a courage and contrition in our contending for the faith and may help us discern which causes to take up and which ones to let pass. We have an almighty Ally for the truth, the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit is dedicated utterly to the Truth, with omnipotent resources. However alone you might feel in a moment of personal controversy, or however small the circle of believing friends, you have a people. Far, far more than seven thousand who have not bowed the knee. None of us stand alone as testifiers of the truth. By faith we are not to become so familiar with God as to think we truly know Him in all knowledge. Our faith depends on God, on His knowledge because we cannot trust someone we do not know. We believe His every word, His every truth. Taken further, our speech mirrors our faith and knowledge of His word, His truth. It is by faith that God brings us to deeper truths. Faith gives us hope, gives us the strength and courage to dive into something the Holy Spirit has continuously put on our hearts. Faith speaks life into situations and people...opening the ears, the eyes, the heart and the mind. When we witness concerning our faith, we are telling someone the truth we know of God. It is not the determined extent of faith but the object of the faith that matters. Faith is genuine and lasting when it is placed in the most trustworthy object of all: Jesus Christ, the divine Word of truth. And earnest faith is persistent, persevering.

11 Minutes Spiritual discernment offers clarity of vision to ready us to receive new light that will enhance truth. God’s people can accept “no”. We can accept rejection. It aids our readiness for the suffering and the trials to come. We step outside that self-outlook programming in order to see things differently and be ready to let go of all those "right" opinions we thought were true. With this readiness comes a peace, an inner calmness. We do not have to agitate to make sure that anyone accedes to our words. We do not have to be stressed out or have sleepless nights because our emphasis is not on manipulation. No longer do we have to convince anyone of the absolute correctness of our reasoning with God, but rather, we are free to let go and allow God to speak and act through people and events according to His will based upon their decisions. We discern that God’s plan is always better than ours. Discernment is a process that begins at the heart but must progress outwardly to include others if we are to serve God’s purposes. It is time to act. God’s will is making itself known to us through events. Be firm in your stand for truth. Do not vacillate or look back or waste momentum on those who are self-sure in their own works. Put your face to the light and trust in our loving and powerful God to work through the smallest and weakest of us to accomplish His plan. The work is God's, not ours. The responsibility of God’s teachers in the last day is awesome. Probably at no other time in history have God’s teachers been faced with decisions whose outcomes are as weighty as those with which we are faced. There will be struggles and strife from within. But we are to be a people of courage and wisdom and deep spirituality. We abandon ourselves to the providence of God and are very careful not to run ahead of it. God strengthens our discernment with careful reflection as a matter of faith. Following the way of discernment means becoming increasingly able to notice where God is at work in the world and in one's own life and becoming increasingly generous with one's own life in response. The power of God working through events is evident as He moved His people into a discerning mindset to worship, connect, and teach in an online environment. New truths abounded from the concept of reasoning with God. Spiritual discernment teaches how to engage to meet the spiritual needs of those who feel comfortable with online worship. In this format God’s people engage the Holy Spirit as a decision partner while removing the pastoral leadership role. It makes for greater exchanges of thought to arrive at higher realms of truth in the word of God. Our focus is broadened. Debate is outed in the face of reason. Extra care is taken to ensure dialogue is productive and relevant to each participant. God’s word is the guiding principle to the discerning body and specific to every issue under consideration. Spiritual discernment creates meaningful boundaries for all conversation being guided in principle from scripture, allowing meaningful engagement of both the person in house and online community. Reasoning with the word of God involves the laying aside anything that might prevent the group from focusing on God’s will as the ultimate outcome to arrive at a decisioned truth. It’s as though we ask ourselves, “what needs to die in me for God’s gifts and direction to find room in our worship”. Because there is reason rather than debate, there is such a preference for the intimacy of worship that minds yield to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. In this, God stays our spiritual groundedness and opens our heart and mind to divine wisdom as He shapes our lives. The approaches unto discernment must be the beauty of sacrificing or emptying ourselves. We abandon social-discernment, self-discernment, for the sake of God-discernment. In this discernment we will find repose and peace in listening to God’s heart. Personally, I choose to discern based upon God’s determination to bring Christ to my life. Hear the expressions of the impressions of God’s gifting His Son... How is it that spiritual discernment is to bring us to godly conclusions? We must first conclude that Jesus is better in every way. And we see that God and His Word, at the end of it, is all we have to stand on as we keep our eyes on eternity while keeping eternity in our hearts. Spiritual conclusions must be bound on scriptural reasoning that necessarily follows from God's word, binding authority presenting inferences as evidence. If example is a valid way to determine God’s will, then what greater example is there than Jesus Christ. Can there be a truth concluded expressed in spiritual reasoning with the word of God? If asked your age and you provide the year of your birth, can the answer be reasoned? The Lord said, "come now and let us reason together." The bible says, “be ready to give an answer to every man who asks a reason for the hope within you.” Our reason is Christ. We must reason from what the bible says to discern the proper conclusion about what is right. Let us not think to defend the use of "human wisdom" in which conclusions are based on human authority or evidence, instead of on bible evidence. We are not defending binding invalid or even possible conclusions that do not necessarily follow from bible statements. Such instances do not prove a conclusion but simply jump to the conclusion. What we defend is the practice of using God's word as our evidence and from it reaching conclusions that truly, validly must follow from what is stated in the word of God. Old Testament prophecy definitely shows that Jesus is the Christ, but this requires taking passages and "adding them up" to reason to the necessary conclusion that is arrived at in the New Testament. Life is in the blood. Jesus had no sin in him. Can we infer that Jesus’ blood was perfect? Discernment means doing a better job of understanding the word of God. When you cut the ropes of truth that anchor the ship how far will it drift until a wreck is imminent. Very real and serious are the consequences when we fail to spiritually discern through scriptural reasoning. Discernment, if true, must be revealed in the likeness of why God caused His son to be as we are...divinely imaged in human flesh. Christ came to make us truly human, our divinely intended nature, made in the image of God. This done in the most powerful way possible...changed from the spiritual essence of God to the bodily presence of man that we may attain the spiritual body of Christ. Our every discernment is to be transformative. We are to become more and more like Jesus Christ, the “man of heaven,” and less and less like Adam, the “man of dust”. And from this we are to discern that as Jesus has gathered to himself and in himself a community, we are to share in the capacity to do the same through his Spirit’s power at work in us. There is no room to doubt but that if we accept of Christ, God will give eternal life. For He has given it already into the hands of our Savior for us. He has entrusted him with the whole affair. He has given all things into his hands, that he might give eternal life to as many as should come to him. The Father has appointed him who died for believers, to be their judge, to have the whole determination of the matter, and the disposal of the reward, in his own hand. And you cannot doubt but that Christ will be willing to bestow eternal life on them for whom he purchased it. For if he is not willing to bestow it, surely he never would have died to purchase it. Who can think that Christ would be so desirous of sinners being saved, as to undergo so much for it, and not be willing to let them have it, when he had obtained it for them. Consider, the wisdom of God, contrived that there should be in the person of the Savior all manner of attractives to draw us to him. He has in him all possible excellency. He is possessed of all the beauty and glory of the Godhead. So that there can be no manner of excellency, nor degree of excellency that we can devise, but what is in the person of the Savior. But yet so redundant has the wisdom of God been, in providing attractives in order that we should come to Christ, it has so ordered that there should also be all human excellencies in him. If there be anything attractive in this consideration, that Christ is one in our own nature, one of us, this is true of Christ. He is not only in the divine, but in the human nature. He is truly a man, and has all possible human excellencies. He was of a most excellent spirit, wise and holy, condescending and meek, and of a lowly, benign, and benevolent disposition. Again, the wisdom of God has chosen a person of great love to sinners, and who should show that love in the most endearing manner possible. What more condescending love can there be, than the love of a divine person to such worms in the dust? What greater love can there be, than dying love? And what more endearing expression of love, than dying for the beloved? And the wisdom of God has so contrived, that Christ shall sustain that office which should most tend to endear him to us, and draw us to him: the office of a redeemer, a redeemer from eternal end, and the purchaser of all happiness. And if all this be not enough to draw us, the wisdom of God has ordered more. It has provided us a Savior that should offer himself to us in the most endearing relation. He offers to receive us as friends. To receive us to a union to himself, to become our spiritual husband and portion forever. And the wisdom of God has provided us a Savior that woos in a manner that has the greatest tendency to win our hearts. His word is most attractive. He does not merely command us to receive him, but he condescends to apply himself to us in a more endearing manner. He entreats and beseeches us in his word and by his messengers. The wisdom of God has contrived that there should be all manner of attractives in the benefits that Christ offers us. Spiritual wisdom garnered through spiritual discernment by the Holy Spirit guides the wise into understanding the magnitude of God’s power as sourced in Jesus Christ of which there is not a hint of limitness. This power reasons us to discern the truth beyond the words as we hear the truth as in the spirit. Lord, please give us discernment to wait on you. Now, discern and decide your course...

15 Minutes In this last day God’s people must become more sensitive to movements of the Spirit in everyday reality. We must make our discernment more than a choice between bad and good; it must bear the weight of consolation and desolation as well as the movements away and to God, in order to make good decisions, right choices. If there is ever any distaste or hollowness in the heart toward others, desolation is the certain path. Consolation will be the peace and happiness in resisting self-serving superficial thoughts. When we allow the workings of God in the heart it is the special discerning the genuine sign of God’s presence. Wondrous insights into His word will be crucially exercised. In this we may clearly understand the movement of God. Knowing when to resist or go along is the essence of good decision-making through discernment for what brings us closer to God. We must be aware of our thoughts. Beyond ourselves are inspired truths that God releases to us that are to bond us more closely. We must know wisdom from the inside of Christ. Discernment is not a natural method of thinking, but requires maturity, discipline, and faith. It is not the physical separation that defies unity, it is the circumstance of a differing approach to following Christ into the mystery of godliness. Consider every action of God in terms of our cooperation or resistance. Our conscience should be alert enough to prompt us not to make a choice towards something which may lead us away from God. Discernment is that of waking our conscience... being aware of the ways of God. Our challenge is to look into the consequences of the sanctuary. By what events can we become better informed before making judgment on scripture. How about considering precept upon precept. Discernment should not be desired to support personal leadings. It is to seek unity in meeting matters. For God’s people, discernment is the act of searching for truth, remaining open to the light beyond the self. God’s people have faith that, for those who question and seek, there is always a way forward in seeking divine guidance. We do this by testing and affirming among ourselves what is the wholeness of truth in accordance with our understanding that there is that of God in each of us and that truth is continually revealed. What might be the result of listening deeply to one seeking clearness, and assisting that one in exploring the word of God and discovering a way forward in the perfecting of character? Can there be trusted “friends” upon whom to call? Where spiritual oneness and harmony are sought, the same is to be expectant, waiting for the guidance of the Spirit. Do not let subtle differences in the language and approach used, deter the unfolding of truth. The search is for unity in the truth, not unanimity. We consider ourselves to be in unity when we share in the search for truth, when we listen faithfully for God, when we submit our wills to the guidance of Spirit, and when our love for one another is constant. Spiritual insight and divine leading are to be the measure of reasoned argument and lively debate. It is expected that personal convictions are outweighed by the reason of God and that His people remain always teachable to come to decisions in harmony with the Spirit. True discernment is the settling into the worship of God. This contributes to the power of discerning truth. Spiritual discernment tests our conviction of a loving spirit. The search for truth lies in our love for God and our suffering for unity among His people who say their love for God is shown in their love, one for another. Is God’s will for the individual to be saved different from God’s will for the people to be saved? Discernment threshes out all tares with questioning and answering. And holding one’s peace, as trusting to divine guidance, is acceptable to disagreement, uncertainty or discomfort. We need every spiritual resource made available by God to faithfully discern how to find out God’s working with each of us in our hearts, minds, and souls through various interior movements – our emotions, thoughts, and desires. Especially those thoughts, emotions, and desires that are not caused by the Holy Spirit. Negative spirits can and do exist in people...sometimes even in those professing godliness. Let’s make this clear - discernment always involves choosing between “goods” and not between good and evil. If our decision is between something good and something evil, that’s not a matter for discernment. We just need to do what we know is right. Discernment is sound only in the context of a personal love relationship with God. That love expresses itself more in deeds than in words. If we love someone, we want to please them. If we love God and want to have a good relationship with God and grow closer to God, we will want to please God, serve God, and do God’s will. It’s only in this context of a love relationship with God that the question of how we know God’s will is meaningful. Discernment comes out of the spiritual warfare and struggle described by the bible itself. If there were no inner struggle, if God’s will for us was perfectly clear, there would be no need for the discernment of spirits. However, we all have to struggle with our false self, inner compulsions, selfishness, egotistical side, pride, anger, greed, fears, self-doubt, lack of trust, and being co-opted by the morally wrong values of our surrounding cultures. In biblical terms the cosmic struggle between good and evil is being played out on the stage of our hearts and our minds. We must take a side. Who are we for and who are we against? Discerning attitudes are to be in accord with prayerful patience. It is with open minds and open hearts that we are to enter into the realm of reason with the word of God and the mind of Christ. Our spirits must be generous letting the Holy Spirit guide us with truth. We must have courage, for God might be asking something difficult, challenging, and risky of us. It takes courage to give up control and trustingly put the decision in God’s hands while seeking God’s will over our own . There’s no telling what height of truth God will lift us to. We must have the freedom to know the central issue and have total commitment to move in God’s truth concerning that issue rather than to move God’s truth. God’s word in every respect must hold the prominence of logic. Everything else in our lives must be kept in the subordinate position. Experiences, and relationships are to be valued and chosen as they contribute to our ultimate goal in discernment of the truth. Our always love for one another must be held in proper perspective by the light and strength of God’s grace. Discernment is never to accommodate disorder or self-centered opinions. With much prayer we ask God to enlighten and move us to seek only what is conducive to His will and purpose. Whether discernment is individually or communally situated we are to follow God’s leading by His word of truth only. If we truly believe we love God that doesn’t mean that where God leads us will be easy or won’t involve sacrifice and even some suffering. But it will lead to a truth that matters, that makes a difference, that has great meaning, and that involves more joy than we began with. Let our discernment go past the mere perception of something. Let it bring us to virtue in possessing wisdom and good judgment, especially so with regard to subject matters often not understood by others. God’s desire is that discernment permits us to transcend the limiting notion of human concepts. Individual discernment using the head and the heart, weigh decisions that decide what is most important to God. Communal discernment uses the same head and heart aligning with the principles of God’s word, keeping in mind what is best for the group as a whole, as well as the individual when making a decision that will bring unity of mind with emphasis of Jesus. Let all arrive in accord with God’s will. The focus on God and Jesus when making decisions is what separates spiritual discernment from secular discernment. The people of God are gifted with the spirit of discernment that they might make life choices based on God’s determination to bring salvation to all who love the Lord. Unity, arrived at through spiritual discernment is more powerful and less divisive than a majority-rule process. Once unity in truth is reached, we move forward together as one, equally praising God for His responsibility in giving us the sufficiencies to meet all our needs. Spiritual discernment gives us confidence to persevere in faithfulness to the commitments we choose while greatly increasing our moving in the wisdom of God rather than the wisdom of man. Discerning the will of God is more important than making decisions for the sake of expediency as it allows for an examination of conscience in preparation for reasoning with God. It opens one’s sensitivity to the Spirit and ability to hear from the Lord. Spiritual discernment of the faithful eliminates biases that are usually hidden but may substantially affect one’s perspective and ability to listen to God and others. Any personal bias does not allow room for God to lead in unexpected ways that are for our good. However, let none risk their salvation for the sake of unity. Decision making and discernment of God’s will, may vary from person to person and even from decision to decision based on the context and the circumstances. Discernment should be centered upon biblical themes and scripture as it considers the life and teachings of Jesus. Ask for the promptings of the Holy Spirit in times of silence and solitude. Use biblical witness as preferences and understanding of how God works. This moment in time urgently demands a discerning approach to our present challenges. If we cannot discern truth in the word of God, what must the position be for the sweeping consequences for justice be as we are faced with trial and tribulation. We must discern how best to present the word of God that others may gain insight as to weigh the evidence and information gathered in situations where God’s people will be placed to be heard. Let there be no doubt about it...the end is here. The wise will hear and add to their learning as God’s people are guided by discernment. God’s word must be final. Remember, Israel was split because the discernment of counsel was discouraged. Not all will be spiritually empowered with wisdom and discernment. If there is no pursuit in the word of God for truth the wrong path is before you. We must apply biblical principles to the situation where discernment is warranted. Biblical solutions are certain for the one who reasons rightly with the word of God arriving at decisions that are “pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. What discernment did Jesus use in choosing his disciples? What discernment did he use in condemning the Pharisees who tempted him? What discernment did Jesus use when wrath overcame those in the synagogue? What discernment did Jesus use while in the garden? These conscious, uncomfortable, loving, difficult decisions were always made in order to fulfill the will of the Father. The impression of Christ and adherence to God's will, are integral to the process of discernment. We must adhere to the word of God rather than human prudence. God’s people are watching from afar as the living abandon life and we bemoan the social conditions of the day. Remember that it is the most holy will of God which put us where we are and that it is for the accomplishment of His will that we must work here as His ambassador. The effects of our faith and prayer are to be evident in our actions, which are the results of our decisions. How do we discern those decisions so as to know God's will? Reasoning with God has taught us that discernment is a prayer-filled process through which each of us can discover the difference between what is my will and what is God's will. Every event that God allows in the life is because of the cross. When we discern matters in that light we grow. If the events of rejection, denial or other sorts did not occur how different might have been our path to wisdom through reasoning with God in His word alone. Did God will for some to deny the search for truth or did He know by their own free-will they would choose to misuse this freedom. God does not renege on His gift of freedom of choice. God permits you to misuse your gift of freedom of choice. God offers the gift of discernment which enable us to be wiser, more insightful, and more sensitive and compassionate than we were. God turns the crosses and the injustices to our benefit.

12 Minutes The utmost distinction of discernment is its pursuit in truth. And it is manifested by that dimension of faith where God is set before us. In our discernment the Lord is present with us. The truth is not given to equip us with concepts and ideas to debate and to discuss. The truth is given as invitations for divine encounter so we could know by experience that God is upon us and He is with us. We are each unique incarnations of God, bringing to visible and tangible expression, God’s presence in the world. When love transforms our behavior, Christ is represented. Christ is the life of the believer. In Christ we discover what is ours to do. We must go through a process of discernment as we give flesh to the word. We must connect with our sacred vocation in service to the purposes assigned us to bring the world to Christ. Not every decision can be straightforward: we must consider our goals and options; maybe we list the pros and cons of each possible choice; and then we choose the action that meets our goal most effectively. Discernment, on the other hand, is about listening and responding to that place within us where our deepest desires align with God’s desire. As discerning people, we sift through our impulses, motives, and options to discover which ones lead us closer to divine love and compassion for ourselves and other people and which ones lead us further away. Discernment reveals new priorities, directions, and gifts from God. We gain the experience of a strange inner freedom to follow a new call as previous concerns move into the background of our consciousness. We begin to see the beauty of the hidden life of Jesus. God’s concrete ways of loving us and the world gradually is made known to us. Discernment is our ability to perceive things as they are. Discernment is about perception and judgment. We can perceive and judge things without making any decision. We need to be a discerning people. We must discern the voice of God, speaking in His word, from competing voices, that our decisiveness to act is concluded by scripture. Discernment is that intent where we read our own spirit, where we are the one who makes the decision confirmed by the word of God. Discernment brings clarity. It keeps us from jumping from thought to thought, as we probe the probable and/or possible consequences of choice. Discernment has us ask why, to eliminate any bias we have by being indifferent about our search for truth. We learn that acknowledging that there may be something we don't already know is essential for growth. Discernment and decisioning help us define a challenge, reason for solution, and judge what is truth. All the alternatives should be exposed. Our position should be like a balance or equilibrium, without leaning to either side, when reasoning with the word that we might be ready to follow whatever truth is perceived the more for the glory and praise of God our Lord and for the salvation of our soul. This is how we are serving God in attaining the end for which He chooses us. And anything that proves a hindrance, we must remove of ourselves. Therefore, we must make ourselves indifferent to all created things, as far as we are allowed free choice and are not under any prohibition. Consequently, as far as we are concerned, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, long life to a short life. We trust God. Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are to serve the purposes of God. Before we discern, ask, beg the Lord for guidance, that we can really do this thing right, that we can place the Lord's values properly, that we can understand and assess the matter properly. We should beg God to consent to move our will, and to bring to our mind what we ought to do in every matter that would be more for His praise and glory. Then we should use the understanding and the discernment to weigh the matter with care and fidelity, and make our decision in conformity with what would be more pleasing to His most holy will. We may hear prayerfully to the thoughts that come to us and through others. We study preceptually every word and make certain there is no disturbance underlining it. We weigh the subject to reckon its advantages and benefits to our salvation. Let none decide for you. Think on what decision and action you would follow if you were at the moment of your death; what decision and action you would follow if you were in the presence of our Judge on the last day. We must often “wrestle” with God to encounter the truth and to understand it. Reason must not yield to any sensual inclination. If you are troubled with an issue, look inside yourself, because nothing from the outside should make us feel troubled, only some motive in our self. Discovering that motive might resolve the trouble. The gift of discernment is like this. Some shadows are erased, so that the beauty of a good decision begins to shine through the haze of conflict and fear. We are to welcome probing questions to challenge us in our understanding. Sometimes we may have to make the familiar strange, or the strange familiar. Setting our concern in another set of clothes so we observe it without our personal bias. Spend earnest time in contemplation with scripture. Reflect on the word of God. God often talks to us "between the lines". The manner in which to confirm our decision is good in conformance to God that there be a sense of peace and an absence of disagreement or disturbance. This peace is the affirmation of God's presence. Pray that our choices, our decisions avoid being strongly biased before having been subjected to objectivity and the gathering of all the truth. The spiritual height of our discernment to understand or know something through the power of the Spirit includes perceiving the true character of people and the source and meaning of spiritual manifestations. This spiritual discernment is based upon faith in engaging every word of God, hearing every word of God, and trusting every word of God. Our discernment is to always be in reflection of our love for God, our love for people, our service to God and others, the wisdom found in reasoning with God, our call to ministering, the fruitfulness of revelation for the understanding of all potential truths. Thus, spiritual discernment is the ability to examine, test, try, judge, or prove something with the result of separating, or distinguishing the good from the bad or the truth from the false. And quiet prayer in the midst of a noisy world is the one absolute essential for faithful discernment. Discernment is required to really know God. We are in a relationship with God, an ever-changing process of learning from Him, understanding His ways, and discovering more and more about Him that we might participate in His purposes. Made able to see a situation clearly to see the truth or falseness behind the words for the purpose of seeking wisdom. Discernment is a process where human understanding and observation come to God for divine reasoning, in which words or behaviors may be measured against the standard of scripture. There must be an awareness of truth as it is in the word of God. There must be an intuitive awareness of spiritual realities. This awareness springs from the shattered remnants of the image of God that remains within us that confirms our capacity to discern in the human conscience. The one thing that we must remember is the experience in the Garden. That one corruption between good and evil that is engraved on our consciences. The other thing is that God’s law is to be written upon our hearts. It must be God’s agenda that intercedes in our articulation of observances. We must evaluate the validity of what is said in the word of prophecy and the word of knowledge. How do we do this? The understanding of what we seek is to be consistent with the Word of God as well as with His character as revealed in scripture; does it give glory to God or does it give glory to someone or something else; does the Holy Spirit give confirmation of the word to others involved in the reasoning; are there verifiable truths that confirm our understanding, and what manner of fruit is borne from the experience. Discernment is to be a sense of “rightness” in our gut, as opposed to a sense of uneasiness. When a word is given that is truth, scripture affirms it. Not the person, but of the rightness of the word given. The mature exercise of discernment is being willing to listen, allowing words to be spoken, adhering to the proper direction of discovery, and believing what God is saying not by letter but by spirit. Ask the Holy Spirit for interpretation. Listen to hear if the Lord will give the information to one person and the interpretation to another person. Then discern whether these things are from the Holy Spirit and what decision is to be made with them. When the movement is forward and upward, unity will be the result and the rise of spiritual discernment. God wants us to mature into the fulness of faith: to become the most fully actualized, reflection of Christ. This is our divine calling, and this is what He made us for. This is the being perfect version of ourselves where deep brokenness, fears, selfishness, insecurities, and wounds are identified as “sin”. And for this cause, God’s gift of discernment speaks loudly in our deepest thoughts to shoulder the burden of loving one another to base our choices off of the good desires in our hearts, that what we decide is based on the goodness within us, our strength, hope, generosity, and compassion. We ignore any semblance of pride. In doing so, we grow in self-knowledge, and we can be sure we are hearing God’s call in our lives: that we are becoming our true selves in Christ. Discernment advantages us to make the right decision for the right reasons. More than that, it gives us confidence to persevere in faithfulness to the commitments we choose for God. As a people of God, we are to work hard to build healthy patterns of living, communicating, and growing together. There should be no lack in the confidence that God has called us together to be a source of strength to witness for His determination...but if the sword of truth cuts, let the division be caused by Christ. Luke 12:51 Spiritual discernment helps us capture the best of every truth, the best of each of us. It’s a holistic approach to bring us in touch with the true, good, and beautiful desires God has placed deep within us. Listening to our heart, evaluating with our mind, and bringing God into the conversation through prayer helps us to clarify our motivations and desires, gives us confidence in the decisions we choose, and teaches us to be dependably born of the spirit. Repeating its essence - discernment is a decision-making process that honors the place of God's will in our lives. It is an interior search that seeks to align our own will with the will of God in order to learn what God is calling us to. Every choice we make, no matter how small, is an opportunity to align ourselves with God's will.

12 Minutes More often than not, God uses His people He has placed in our lives to speak to us. Those who hear His voice records what He has to say and not only in biblical writings. God still today continues to speak through the words that His people are given to write. God wants a people who can objectively evaluate and discern situations and respond from a biblical perspective in a form that give others access to His reasoning. So, we write. From the time when broken clay tablets were found with inferences of truth till now, we have the obligation to share that which God provides. Proverbs 5:11-14 All words, spoken, signed, or written, are to be marked by agape love and compassion for God’s people. Ignore the earthly fluff of a person. Listen for the heart of God in the awareness of what is expressed in truth. Listen for the demeanor to discern when words or positions are endowed with spiritual encouragements rather than personal opinions. Listen for the confidence that the writer, the speaker puts in their trust in Christ’s sovereignty. If the words are sincere, we will have battle scars as God moves us through trials to align our characters with His purposes. Words of correction, reproof are for the perfecting of character through Jesus Christ in our battles against the world and the flesh. When we come to say what God would have us say, we have to be ready to hear from the Holy Spirit and share God’s word liberally with others. It’s a position of honor that deserves respect because of the greater accountability. When we hear, when we read, as we study, we must discern the knowledge, the wisdom, the truthfulness, the integrity of the counsel offered. We must know that the motive is founded in God’s love. And there is this highest form of love. The love of God for man, for His creation. It embraces the deepest and ultimately profound sacrificial commitment that both transcends and persists regardless of any circumstance. In its most holiest of obligation, of binding, of assurance, of responsibility, of faithfulness, of indifference, and of steadfastness it is reciprocal. God to man, man to God. Agape love is the engagement of empathy extending to the desire for good while wanting the best, having right intentions to have no self-seeking motive. It is truly selfless. It is not of attraction. It is actually offered to another in the way of atonement. It is as though it is a reparation. It is a healing and a compensation for what is endured. God so loves His because these will endure in innocency to the end, every suffering brought upon them with the confidence and the faith that it is God Himself performing that which readies us for heaven. This agape love is the core of service for God, integrity in life, excellence in obedience, and shared purpose in the saving for Christ’s sake all that come to him. Agape love unites. It is intentional. It is a distinction relative to a vow. This is the love that is offered to save, to restore. It is a choice. Agape love is very powerful. It is effectual because regardless if one is drawn to another, it is sourced in the will of a person. Agape love is not a natural kind of affection. It is integral only in one’s relationship with and to God. It is an experience that perseveres in Christlikeness. Think of its essence as being a testament. It is not simply the deed of love, it is the actual being love. It is an existence. It is expressed in the spiritual confines of life as it is a thing possessed. You want to see it? Watch what it does. It is life poured out in the crimsonness of humility. Sacred in its purpose. It is a demonstration that resolves God’s determined design to bring His people to perfection. If you are not rooted in the very truth of God then you have not the heart that immeasurably, unfathomably is passionate for God’s salvation. We are to believe God’s word more than we are to believe in ourselves. Agape love is not something you can measure by your feelings. If you come not to reason with God, you hinder the manifestation of the light that shines upon unfailing love. Agape love is a rare jewel. And any who offers to speak, to write for God, offers themselves as a sacrifice. Jesus taught the most necessary things in life are to love God supremely, to love other people as He loved us, and to make converts of the people. We cannot separate the knowledge of God from the love of God. Agape love is a discerned choice. And when this love is the motive of belief, a trust, a cherishing of words written or spoken should frame a right understanding of truth claims that give narrative to our lives. With God’s spirit we can know and believe what is spoken or written is true. There is to be a conviction in every line of understanding. We are to embrace words that expose the inner person. Every word is to have the intent and the purpose to refer not only to growth in the knowledge of God but to the pursuit of godliness and a transformed life teaching us to follow Jesus. God’s people are to use their words to move toward the goal of Christlikeness so that they will not only know what is true but that their lives would reflect this doing truth as well. The things that we hear from God, we are to witness to faithful others that they may teach others of the agape love that is God. God’s word that is written on our hearts must also be written from our hearts. Agape love that motivates both speaking for and writing for God is an intentional, a conscious choice. It serves the recipient as a true mark showing hope for their salvation. One who writes for God must reason God’s decisive love, which is decisive because He is in control and has a purpose in mind. There are many reasons a proper understanding of the truth of God's word is critical and one of the foremost is Jesus' declaration that "by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have agape for one another.” Inherent in every presentation must be the proclamation of the preciousness of the love that was shown at Calvary. It is to encourage one to surrender to the enticement of the Holy Spirit who is at work in us to will and to work to God’s good pleasure. There is to be the certainty of love which means death to self and defeat for sin since the essence of sin is self-will and self- gratification, a love activated by personal choice of our will, not just to fellow believers but to all men everywhere. Agape love is to be our lifestyle, our habitual practice. In our strength it is literally impossible to carry out this description of supernatural love, but it is "Him" where it is made possible as we yield to the enabling power of the indwelling Holy Spirit recalling that agape is the first component of the fruit of the Spirit. Agape may involve emotion, but it must always involve action. Agape is unrestricted, unrestrained, and unconditional. Agape love is the virtue that surpasses all others and in fact is the prerequisite for all other loves. The traits agape portray; unselfishness, self-giving, willful devotion, concern for the welfare of others is the imitation of God's love in Christ. Agape love counts no cost too great. Not to those who love us, but who hate; not to those who are pleasant and agreeable, but who repel; not because our natural feelings are excited, but because our will is to minister, even to the point of the cross, must our love go out. And every time we, in this way, sacrifice ourselves to another for the sake of the love of God, we enter into some of the meaning of the sacrifice of Calvary, and there is wafted up to God the odor of a sweet smell. Beloved, when God presents spoken or written truths for you contemplate His covenant agreement. Then take a moment and meditate on the profundity of the truths inherent in agape love and please consider, for the sake of your testimony and for the sake of the glory of the Lord and His kingdom how this is determined to awaken a sense of reasoning in the apprehension of all truths. Think of the constituent element of the truth in evaluating what love the mystery of godliness works. Agape is Christ’s loving nature truly becoming our own. If we reason rightly with God’s word, Christ has his proper place in our hearts, we do not have to be told to love, just as we do not have to be told to breathe. Why God inspired the writers of the bible and why He inspires His people to write today under the motivation of agape love is because it is controlled by His will. Jesus didn't speak of ordinary human affection. He is the Word agape just as God is love. This divineness is not based on a favorable or unfavorable account of another. Agape love is an act of obedience, it is deliberate. The absence of such is the presence of sin. The absence of love has nothing at all to do with what is happening to us, but everything to do with what is happening in us. Sin and love are enemies, because sin and God are enemies. They cannot coexist. Where one is, the other is not. The loveless life is the ungodly life; and the godly life is the serving, caring, tenderhearted, affectionate, self–giving, self– sacrificing life of Christ’s love working through the believer. Agape love is what Jesus asked Peter about. Agape love is what moved God to send His only son. God’s opening up His counsel that we might come to understand the reasoning of His doing truth and giving of Himself completely to others is the epitome of agape love. It has always been God’s people revealing what God places in them to speak, to write, as the merit of every word is for the sake of giving. God’s change was predicated upon His agape love’s perfect expression on earth in the Lord Jesus Christ as he defines this sacrificial love. For He left heaven, came to earth, took on a human form, was spit on and mocked, was crowned with a crown of thorns, nailed to a cross, abused, and had a spear thrust into His side. He loved the people so, to die for them. That's sacrificial love. How did the process of divine inspiration occur? How did the eternal God speak through human beings? What happened to the writers to cause them to compose the scripture? God decided to reveal certain truths about Himself through His servants. These are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Notice how when God allows us to write concerning His truths it helps to reinforce the truth that Christ is to be the focal point of our faith. It gives us a greater intensity to hone in on the total essence of the truth as truth presented outside the scripture enlarges our capacity to reason. We not only preserve the word of God deeper in our hearts, but we lean in closer to inspect the jewels of truth. We see words we’ve never seen before; we realize truth we’d never gleaned previously; and we finally understand the power of writing out God’s Word. When we sacrifice our opinions, God’s word is turned over and over in the mind before their full force and beauty takes possession of us. Writings constrain us to see the words. Rich and sweet truths are reasoned. Powerful truths found in many familiar passages become embedded further in our hearts because we took the time to hear what God had someone write offering deeper application. What does agape love have to do with studying the word? We move beyond differences of understanding to see the most profound and special ways truth is shown when compassion and care, through His words and deeds are given compliment by the love we show one for another. We are His disciples.

10 Minutes Jesus made a statement that seemingly went against the truth of his coming to us. Peter failed to reason with all that Jesus said. And it was after this that Jesus so compassionately warned Peter of the desire of Satan to sift him. Study it in Luke. This was to remind Peter of his own weakness. Did Peter stand for Christ? Peter swayed. Do we realize that when a trial for standing for truth is presented to us it was first contested in heaven. Satan acquired permission from God. For us, that should be one of the most comforting things that ever was written in scripture. God is saying “try my servant”, see that they will stand”. What a minor test. There was no threat of a vat of boiling oil. There was no furnace heated seven times more. There was no log to be placed in and sawn asunder. Just a time to stand. That is a sifting time. God had made you ready. God thought enough of you to give you the spiritual capacity to stand. Wow! How many of us know that makes the difference! If ever again the opportunity to stand is brought to you, stop, breathe deep, reason and say, “God knows I can handle this. I choose to agree with His belief of me. I can handle this. He will not test me beyond what I can bear! Lord, cause me to stand.” No matter how the test comes...relationally, socially, economically, sexually, politically, or religiously...it’s just a test. Satan wants to shake someone apart, to break a person down. To crush them and to wreck their faith. Count it all joy. God is growing us in maturity, refining our characters. Think about how many stood for Christ while laying down their lives. There is one thing that really helps someone during the sifting process and that is prayer. We are to pray one for another just as Jesus prayed for us. It helps an individual more to pray for them than to go and talk about them. Think about the lesson learned concerning reasoning with God. If the failure of one to stand for truth was not seen would the wisdom to avoid the same mistake work for your good? One of the greatest mysteries that will be revealed is the powerful love that God’s people possess for others. God uses the sifting as a jumping-off point for a rigorously honest, deeply challenging, yet powerfully comforting exploration of the trials that beat us down, the good God who allows our troubles, and the incredible beauty the process of sifting can reveal in us will settle us for the sealing. We are being made stronger witnesses for God. The sifting is the mercy of God. He is removing the ungodly areas from the life that the righteousness can be vested in Christ. The sifting and settling is that part of the process which determines where you and I will end. This process is very closely tied to the shaking, and its progression is brought about by events. Our choices relating to those events determine our status in the sifting and settling process. How sad it will be for some having come so far up the path to glory to find they have traded in the everlasting kingdom for some sentimental offering to a man. The process of the sifting is one that winnows out the chaff from the pure wheat. We should be very sensitive to and ready for it. It is a continued testing time, which will come to every professor of truth. It will be telling on those who have received the love of the truth, and on those who have not taken the time to study these testing truths for themselves. In this time, which I believe we have already entered, those who have spent precious hours studying to know God’s will, will receive protection and discernment which are vital. Those who receive not of this gift and know not the truth through personal experience will not be protected but will end up on the wrong side, even though they think they are right. Amos 9:9 God’s people will be shaken, and sifted, yet still in the hands of God, in both His hands, as the sieve in the hands of Him that sifts. Today we find ourselves in unusual circumstances. What we thought we knew yesterday is no longer a given or a definite today. Each day brings new information and changing circumstances, if not for ourselves, for loved ones or people we know. The refinement process of precious metals used in scriptures helps us to grasp what the Spirit of the Lord is doing in this season. The intensity of trial by fire to bring purity to the metals is exacting and uncompromising. There is no way around the process of bringing forth pure gold or silver. Wherever we are shaken and sifted, God will have His eye upon us, and will take care to separate between the rock and the sand, which was the thing He designed in sifting us. Nothing will take us off course in our faith journey. God’s righteous ones, that are as the solid rock, shall none of them perish; we shall be delivered either from or through the common calamities of the world; not one rock shall fall on the earth, so as to be lost and forgotten. Not one of the least stone, so the word is, for the right hand of Christ holds the weight as a stone in comparison with that which is shaken sand . Whatever shakings, siftings there may be in the world, God does and will effectually provide that none who are truly His shall be truly miserable. There is a theological end to what God is doing. It is to bring instruction in godliness, correction of behavior, encouragement of faith and exaltation of our worship for God. Jesus departed that the Holy Spirit may give us some very heavy doctrine and he’ll give us some more before we get done. In this way God’s people learn that His truth is exclusive...it excludes all opinions. It does not contradict itself. Everybody is not right. Truth will always lead you to the person of Jesus Christ because truth is a person. And truth is the way God made him. To reject truth is to reject Jesus Christ and many do so at their own peril, and they will reap the consequences. Does God find joy when His professed people separate over truth? Yes, for there is this great joy...His people prove perseverance. It’s the last hour. This last hour is an hour of testing and this is the hour you and I live in. We are not just in a test of temptations and trials, but in a doctrinal test as well. God has no hybrid truth blended with what you think. All of God’s truth is the Word. And it sifts. I John 2:19 God is doing the sifting with His hands. No mistake is made in the separation. This is not about someone leaving a church. It is those professing faith in Christ but who are not genuine. Jesus sifts the disingenuous from the genuine and he does this by fire. By trials and by demonic spirits. Yes, God uses demonic spirits to deceive those who would not stand for truth believing a lie. God is serious about His people. Every doctrine of God is essential. The 144000 may be all found in Philadelphia or they may be drawn as overcomers from each of the churches. Have that disagreement if you like. But when we’re dealing with the very person of Christ, what salvation really is, that’s something to divide over. We are to have no hesitation about truth. When it comes to Christ, when it comes to the authority of the Book, when it comes to how one is born again by the Spirit of God, we cannot tolerate compromise. There can be none. Perseverance in the sifting is a test that you are a genuine believer. You have given evidence that you are truly a child of God. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. There it is. Perseverance, staying with it. However, perseverance is not only confessing for doctrine that is truth, it is also practicing that truth. We all are sifted and we must remain faithful in doctrine and in practice if we are one of God’s elect, one of His redeemed, one of His children. It’s part and parcel of salvation if we endure to the end. And so, God sifts His own people. He puts us through fire and floods; He takes us through deserts, dark valleys, and through illnesses. He takes us through relationships gone shipwreck, He takes us through rebellious children. He takes us through financial upheaval and stormy seas of dreams unfulfilled, of hopes and aspirations dashed on the rocks of reality. God takes His people through almost every conceivable hardship. He throws us in lion’s dens and fiery furnaces, but if we are God’s people we always endure. Why? Because endurance is a gift of grace from God. God appoints suffering for the messengers of His grace. Remember, the enemy pulled down Judas, then he went after Peter. He knew God had better things for Peter based upon Jesus renaming him from Simon. Perhaps we are in the sieve right now because God has some better thing for us. The enemy never asks God’s permission to sift us unless we are staunch in the line of obedience. God is doing a new thing once again in this last generation, and we have been set apart by Him to be a powerful witness to many. He has set us free, and is preparing us for His eternal purposes. And the greater our gifts, the greater our potential, the greater our surrender to the will of God and the more severe our sifting will be. For those who are sifted we do as did Jesus...we pray. For the sifting also teaches us how to love those who fall. When we see brothers and sisters compromising let us love them enough to warn them as firmly as did Jesus. Our sifting is a source of joy and assurance as we face trials and temptations as we run with endurance the race set before us. It teaches that true believers, whom God has effectually called and chosen and brought into union with Christ, will certainly persevere unto final salvation, obtaining our heavenly inheritance, and will not fall away. We learn that perseverance does not depend decisively upon our own free will, but upon the purpose, grace, and preserving power of God. It is the continuous operation of the Spirit in our lives that brings the divine work of sovereign grace, that began in the heart, to completion. We have been effectually called and continue to hold fast because God has purposed to never abandon the work He began. From beginning to end, our preservation is grounded in the grace of God and His immutable, eternal, steadfast, covenant love. All faithful believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, who have been effectually called have been “sealed for the day of redemption” and are being guarded through faith by God’s power. The assurance that we have is not that we won’t undergo much temptation, many trials, but that God will protect our faith that it fails not. With His divine seal we will remain faithful to Christ. We are chosen before the foundation of the world. God secures our perseverance through the influence of the Spirit and by various means, including warnings and exhortations. Take heed. The warnings aren’t negligible because true believers will not fall away. Rather, they are the God-appointed means by which we persevere in the sifting. Let us admonish one another, exhort one another that we be kept for the sake of being the elect of God. Some have swerved from the faith and upset the faith of others. It is in this that those who have been truly sincere will by no means remain in a shaken state and will be brought back to perseverance until the end. Let none dissuade you from the precept of God’s word. His truths never change. Our God is full of power, wisdom and knowledge. He knows when a person turns to Him with love, and when a person has put their trust in Him. To such people, God is a fortress. And here is the strong warning...the Lord knows those that are His.