Old Jerry

Jesus died on the cross and his clothes were distributed to the guards. There was one garment that they drew lots for. Jesus felt all the pain that the cross was able to administer.

I think that Pilate feared that Jesus was a powerful man (which he is) from the celestial heaven like the myth Souse and that he was going to be cursed if he crucified Jesus. I think that Pilate feared that Caesar would look into what he had been doing and maybe remove him from office. The fear that wins out is the fear of Caesar.

Pilate maintains Jesus’ innocence and then has him brutally scourged because he was trying to pacify the Jewish leaders. Jesus allowed himself to be brutally scourged and then mocked because he knew that was the reason that he was sent to the earth. He was to die for our sins. I have asked the question of how much persecution I was willing to endure to accomplish the mission the Father has given me many times. I just hope I will endure to the end.

When a disciple declares the gospel is absolutely true he will get ridiculed and harassed. They will laugh at him. They will tell you that there is more than one way to get to heaven. Since some people reject the truth the next step for us to let God do his job. We are only to spread the truth not make them believe it.

I think that the Jewish leaders charged Jesus with trying to take over Pilate’s kingship and rebelling against him. If this were true that would be a serious offence because they didn’t want any resistance to the rule. Jesus says he is a king of a different world. The source of his kingship according to Jesus is his heavenly Father. The danger to our gospel message when we politicize Christian causes is that we forget whose kingdom we belong to.

Peter’s acts of courage at the arrest was that he drew his sword and was about to fight off those that were after Jesus. In the priest’s courtyard it just took courage to in into the enemy’s territory. I think that Peter denying Jesus was so that he could stay close to Jesus for incase he was needed. I would rebuke Peter with gentleness. My courage does fail me sometimes. The only thing I can do is go to Jesus for courage.

I think that the cause of the soldiers to fall back in the Garden was because they knew that they were in the presentence of a spiritual man. I think that John told us this detail because he wanted us to know that even if we don’t believe in Jesus he was still a spiritual man. I think Jesus rebuked Peter for defending him with the sword because Jesus knew what was going to happen to him and he had to obey the Father. Jesus didn’t resist because He was sent down here to save the world. And the only way he was going to do that is to take our sins to the cross.

I think that unity is important between Christians because we will all be putting out the same message. The model that Jesus gives us to be one just like He and the Father is one. The unity will make it possible to be putting out the same message. If you hear the same thing from different sources then it will be a more believable message.

God’s desire is to leave us here in this world. Only our body has to be in the world but our souls and mind are of the heavenly body. We can achieve this by keeping our minds on the Father and praying at all times.

The Son and the Father “co-possess” everything because it was them that created all things as it says in the first part of John. Their relationship is intertwined with each other. The Son does what the Father wants him to do. The sense that we “co-possess” everything with the Father and Son us part of the family of God. This should make us feel like we are part of the family of God and that we also ought to do the things that God wants us to do.

I don’t know what Jesus’ preexistent glory was like but it must have been something out of this world. Even the things that John wrote in Revelations about the kingdom was glorious but the glory couldn’t be express in human terms. His glory during his earthly ministry was to do the work of the Father. His glory peek through with the miracles that he performed. The glory that He now has in the presence of the Father is that everybody in heaven is glorifying him. Jesus wanted his disciples to see him in this glory so that they would continue in the work that the Father gave him.

Jesus came to the earth to tell us about the Father and to save our souls. Any time that you do something that is fulfilling the Father’s work it bring glory to Him. We are also to make disciples and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I bring glory to the Father by spreading His word.

If the average person were to define the words “eternal life,” they would probably say that it is life that last forever. Jesus dose not define eternal life in terms of duration of time. The key element of his definition is knowing God and Him.

Jesus “overcome” the world when if followed God’s instructions and in doing so he died on the cross and was resurrected. We can overcome the world by knowing God’s words and doing what the words say. We can overcome Satan because nobody can take our faith away from us even if we are martyred in the process.

When we think that we are lonely we can always go to the Father for comfort. We have always got somebody to talk to. We can be in his word continually and seek him. Or we can go to the His words in the Bible for comfort.

The meaning of praying to the Father “in Jesus’ name” is saying that we can go directly to the Father and say that Jesus has sent us. Yes, it is ok to pray to the Jesus and the Holy Spirit. After all they are all part of God some way. The Bible doesn’t address that we should or should not pray to a saint to intercede for us. But it does say that we should pray to God because Jesus is interceding for us. Jesus died on the cross making it possible to go directly to the Father and we are to go to the Father in Jesus name.

The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth by nudging us or putting it on our heart that we should be doing something or not do the thing that we are about to do. This applies to all ages to continue to laying the foundation of our faith. This applies to us all the time.

The Holy Spirit convicts unbelievers by the way that we act and talk. They will see the way that we are and want to have what we have. It isn’t our job to convict unbelievers or backslidden people but to talk them gentle and pray that God will intervene. When we try to do the Holy Spirit’s job then people are turned off from wanting to know God.

When Jesus went away the disciples received the Holy Spirit. The promise that we have is that we will be able to greater things than what Jesus did when we accept the Holy Spirit.

The meaning to “testify” is to tell someone about the experience that you had. The Spirit testifies about Jesus whenever we come to a situation that we don’t quite know how to handle. We can testify from a personal knowledge about Jesus because we can see what he had done in our lives. We are the eyewitnesses to what has happened to us.

We believe that the Holy Spirit is a Person because then we can relate to him. The function that we attribute to persons that the Holy Spirit does is to remind us of our teaching of the Bible. He keeps us on the straight and narrow. We refer to the Spirit as “It” rather than “Him” because we can’t see Him.

Christians are persecuted because they are usually honest and they try to be observe the laws. This makes those that aren’t doing the right things look bad. Jesus was warning them that persecution will come because they are following him. He knew that they would be ridiculed because he was ridiculed. If we give in to their persecution, then they won’t listen to our testimony because they will see us being the same as them. I think when we don’t react to their persecutors it just gets them madder and they will lose all control. They will see us as strong.

I don’t think that there is any requirement to be a “friend of Jesus”. All we have to do is try to follow in his footsteps and try to get to know him better. If we are his friend then we are in the family of the Kingdom of God. If we take for granted this privilege he will not share the future of the family business.

Obedience and joy are linked together because if we know that we are obeying somebody that brings us joy. Obedience is not an obstacle to a joyful relationship between me and the Lord. It bring me great joy knowing I am doing what the Lord want me to be doing.

The fruit that comes from being connected to Jesus is that we will be able to bring more people to Jesus. At least we will be able to put it on their minds and maybe they will start to believe in Him. It could be accurate to define fruit as “souls saved” but that isn’t the only thing. It is the way that we live our lives. The danger in this definition is that it isn’t all that it means.