jesus

(Philippians 3:13;Revelation 2:4) A person who has "lost His first love' has a vibrant appearance, full of vitality but within looks like a hollow shell. Yes it has happened to me . My love for Jesus was not the same when I accepted Him because I became too familiar into thinking I know Jesus intimately. I got caught up in doing some good works and knowing some Scriptures here and there and thought I know Him well. I did not pursue Christ like Paul enjoying Him,walking with Him and seeking to know Him more by loving and serving Him passionately as I should have. When I get comfortable in life, I go slack, disobedient and even lazy and do not seek Jesus and love Him as I should. I can regain personal intimacy with Jesus by surrendering to Him my will and my ways and spend time in His presence and meditate His word and most importantly obey and do what He tells me to. He loves those who obey His commands. By seeking Him and not anyone or any thing and giving Him the first place in my life,I can regain the intimacy with Him. I might need to repent of my sin of disobedience and walking away from seeking Him and other things that came my way of loving Him as I should. I must desire to have that close intimacy with Christ and press on towards the goal of knowing Him fully. Without this goal of wanting to know Jesus fully I may fail.

(Philippians 3:8-9) Our own pride and righteousness and religious achievements can actually get in the way of "Knowing Christ" because we are proud and self righteous depending on our own wisdom and knowledge to know God. We will not be able to experience the reality of who God is if we full of ourselves thinking we know it all. We have to empty ourselves as Paul did, unlearn everything and seek to know Christ through His Holy Spirit in us. We have to let go of all our achievements ,our human wisdom or knowledge , our self righteous attitudes and seek to know Jesus humbling ourselves before Him. Pride,righteousness and confidence in religious achievements will hinder us developing a closer intimacy with Jesus or knowing Him truly. We have to seek a personal relationship with Jesus by letting go of ourselves and learn from Jesus who gentle and humble. As we develop a closer walk with the Lord and seek to know Him intimately spending time in His presence and His Word we will surely "know Him". To "Know Christ" is living in a closer relationship with Jesus and have intimacy with Him.We have to give up everything as Paul did to know Him.We need to have child like faith in Christ and not faith in our righteousness and religious achievements which makes us proud from experiencing the power of Christ in our lives. Yes many a times my pride ,righteousness and religious achievements have come in the way of Knowing Jesus and getting closer to Him. But He is always faithful and chastises me of these attitudes through any situation and since He is the Good Shepherd of my life ,He leads me with His rod and staff. Thus, I know I am nothing without Christ and have to a place to know that all I am and all that I have is only because of Christ who saved my by His grace and not on my own merit.

(Colossians 1:14-20;Romans 8:1) To be "In Christ " means to be in union with Jesus Christ. It suggests a close association that is, union with Christ. Such a union is very important to as as believers in Christ because we receive the fullness of Christ as Christ dwells in us through His Holy Spirit. This union with Christ empowers us to His true disciples and we will be sharing His righteousness. We no longer belong the world but we belong to Christ who has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into His Kingdom and we receive redemption and forgiveness of our sins because we are "In Christ" Through this union with Christ ,we are born again, created anew, adopted as God's children into His family and redeemed from sin and darkness.

(Philippians 2:2-11) Jesus demonstrated the importance of humility by emptying Himself of some of the "relative attributes" of deity-omniscience,omnipotence and omnipresence. He became a slave as well as a human being.He too on the form of a slave as well as a human being. He took the humiliation to become a human being and takes on the humiliation of death, and a very painful and shameful death. Jesus sets an example of humility and humbling Himself rather than insisting on His own ways with selfish ambition and vain glory.Jesus hymned Himself twice over-first in taking the form of a human being and then voluntarily assenting to the most shameful death . He gave up all his rights and became a slave dying the most painful death and that was humility! When we try to exalt ourselves rather than wait on God to exalt us, God will humble us as He resists the proud ,but gives grace to the humble. This tendency to exalt oneself could be called self-idolatry or self glorification.

( Philippians 1:20-23)Deaths gain for Paul because he departs to be with Christ. Paul says to depart and be with Christ is far better than life in this body. He prefers death to life because it being at home with Jesus, a gain and far better than life. According to Philippians 1: 22-24 Paul has to decide which is better life or death in terms of the benefits of him being alive or dying. He feels convinced that he lives physically it will be fruitful labor, benefit to the Philippians and other churches to help them towards progress and joy in the faith and to increase their joy in Christ. Even though Paul says death is a gain and far better than life, he still decides and prefers life because his life will benefit the Churches all around and build them up in faith and joy.

( 2 Corinthians 5:10; Romans 12:10) Appearing before Jesus Christ our Judge should make us fearful because will receive what is due to us according to the things we did while in the body whether good or bad. If we have truly stayed obedient to Jesus Christ our names will be found in the Lamb's Book of life and we will not be condemned on the Day of Judgement as we have passed from death to life.Our judgement will not be for our salvation as the issue has been settled when we put our faith in our Christ ,received the Holy Spirit, and our position became "In Christ". Our judgment there will be for rewards we will receive for our faithful service. It is therefore necessary we remain faithful to the end,fighting the good fight of faith , run the race with perseverance and receive our reward. Our faith in Jesus will save us. Our works will be judged by fire, and the fire will test our works. If our work is built o the foundation that is Jesus , it will survive and we receive our reward. If our work was not built on Jesus ,but for personal gain and glory it will be burnt up ,it will be a loss, though we will will be saved ,but only through as fire.( 1 Corinthians 3:12-15)

( 2 Timothy 2:3; 3:10-12;4:7) We are quieted quickly by mild societal disapproval of our witness because we fear rejection, persecution and approval from man. Often, we want to remain in the good books of men by not offending them speaking the truth. We fear losing relationships and many things attached to it and we remain quiet when we see the societal disapproval. A soldier is one who has committed his life to fight for his country and willing to fight any battles and even lose his life for his country. Like as a good soldier of Christ ,we remain committed to Jesus and obey Him and share the Gospel even when we may have to face trials ,persecutions and hardships. We do not back out when we face the enemy and flee but we stand firm and endure hardship like a good soldier of Christ. Fighting the good fight means we realize what we are fighting and for whom we are fighting. We fight for something if we want something. Likewise as Christians committed to Jesus we must know we have a fight against the enemy. When we stand for Christ in faith and serve Him and want to see may souls lost we must continue to fight the good fight our faith knowing our fight is against powers of darkness and our aim to testify to the Gospel of grace to many who will be saved. We fight against all odds and win because Jesus will give us the victory.

Acts 20:24b; Ephesians 6:20; 2 Corinthians 5:20 : Paul is an ambassador because he has an assignment from Jesus to testify to the Gospel of God's grace and is an official representative of Christ and functions as an embassy on behalf of the Kingdom of God. An ambassador for any country is on an assignment or a mission abroad on behalf of that country. Paul is on an mission ,task or and assignment from Jesus and thus functions as an ambassador for Christ ,on behalf of the Kingdom of God carrying out the task of testifying about Jesus. Once I accept the Lord Jesus Christ my life is not my own but His and I also am an ambassador because I have to carry on the tasks of Jesus of testifying and being a witness to His grace and share the Gospel to the others. Sharing one's testimony is very important in ambassadorship because we testify from our own life the grace of God ,how he saved us, what Jesus has done and doing for us which encourages others to know about Jesus and believe in Him. We become witnesses to the Lord's grace and favor upon our lives as we share our testimony and draw others to Jesus.

(Acts 20:24): The problems that result from valuing our life for its own sake is we will lose it. Lose what? we will miss out on eternity with Jesus and eternal life if we hold on to our own dear life. Luke 9:23-25 To take up his cross daily and follow Jesus to total and complete surrender to Jesus Christ and obey His commands and His voice daily and not do what we want to It is allowing Jesus to daily lead us and guide and follow Him and his ways and not our will. What keeps us from taking up our cross and follow Him daily is lack of our complete surrender to Jesus ,lack of obedience to Him, wanting to gratify the desires of our flesh and our will. Galatians 2:20 what Paul means when he says He is crucified with Christ is, just as the Lord Jesus obeyed the will of His Father,upto his death on the cross by crucifixion, Paul has surrendered his life in humility to Jesus and crucified his desires, dreams will ,etc and allowed the Lord to rule and reign and do whatever He pleases to do with him. Paul has chosen to take up his cross and follow Christ in the right way obeying the Lord rather than pleasing men or valuing his own life.

(Acts 19:21;20:22-23; 21:11) No the prophecies about imprisonment in Jerusalem are not in conflict with Paul's leading form God. He had to go to Jerusalem and face imprisonment and death according to the will of God. It was the opinion and the fear of Pauls life of the other believers that persuaded him not to go to Jerusalem and face persecution. The believers loved Paul and did not want to lose him too and tried to convince him not to go to Jerusalem. Paul actively encourages prophecy in the churches he establishes because it edifies the churches. ( 1 Corinthians 14: 1,5) Many Christians despise prophecy because they are not tuned to hear the voice of Jesus and his will which comes through prophecy but have rather sort to their own wisdom and understanding without hearing from God.

(Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2) The Christians worshipped on the first day of the week ,Sunday, in honor of the resurrection and to break bread to celebrate the Lord's sipper together. The first day of the week,Sunday is called the Lord's day in honor of his resurrection. (Revelation 1:10). Breaking bread means remembering the precious sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross and partaking in communion by receiving his body and blood and honoring His command .." Do this in remembrance of me".(Luke 22:19) It is very important to us believers because Christ instituted it and commanded us to remember Him by receiving His body and blood in communion. Secondly it is the spiritual bread we feed upon for our spiritual nourishment as we know through the words of Jesus that man does not love by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from his mouth. when we break bread we also come in close intimacy with Jesus and we abide in Him as He is the vine and we are the branches. We receive nourishment from Jesus and stay connected to the Vine as we receive communion.

Praise and thankfulness are a related to our faith in Jesus Christ. When we truly are yielded and submitted to Jesus we will be praising and thanking Him in any situation of our lives. Obedience to the commands of God is faith and God has commanded us to be people of praise and thankfulness. Praise and thankfulness is the demonstration of our faith as well. Praise and thankfulness are powerful weapons of in our warfare because we are trusting God and allowing Him to take control and we look ahead for victory,rather than believing the lies of the enemy and get into into fear and despair. As we use these weapons of praise and thankfulness we bring about the defeat of the enemy. The walls of Jericho fell because they obeyed God firstly and then shouted praise. NO matter what,when we obey God by praising Him and thanking Him ,we obey and trust Him it is God who will go ahead and fight all our battles and gives us the victory. That is why praise and thankfulness are powerful weapons on our warfare as God moves on our behalf, stills the storm and defeats the enemy. God works when sing and praise in faith as he did with King Jehoshapat. Praise and thankfulness is also a cure for anxiety . Thanksgiving is a language of faith and God expects us to come to Him in an attitude of remembering His faithfulness in the past situations and thus an expectation of his answer in this situation. Praise and thankfulness as powerful weapons help us to keep our focus in Christ and not on the problems.As we remain joyful and thankful we are in good health as well and we don't strive to battle in the flesh but use our weapons and fight the good fight of faith and allow God to take over.

(2 Corinthians 2:10-11; Ephesians 4: 26-27) anger and unforgiveness are sins are satan's schemes or devices so that we become spiritually crippled and unable to pray. It gives an opportunity for the devil to damage out spiritual life by keeping us in bondage of these sins. Again when we give satan an internal platform to operate through these sins he can continually attack us from within.We must give up those places within us through repentance and faith so that we be effective Christians and not paralyzed in sin. The one who hurts me the most when I did good to them is the difficult person to forgive. anyone who is opposing and accusing me for being a Christian also is difficult to forgive. My unforgiveness is more damaging to me than the person who hurt me is because I allow satan a place or a foothold in my life and an opportunity to damage my walk with Christ I cannot pray and remain closer to God and hear his voice,instead unforgiveness cripples me and allows satan to attack me. I need to repent and get right with God and surrender all who hurt me to Jesus and allow Him to work in my life and in the lives of those who hurt me. Obedience to God is the only key and not get into the deception and lies of the emery with anger and unforgiveness.

( 2 Corinthians 4:3-4; John 8:44) The chief tools of Satan keeping people under control is firstly he has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so that they cannot see the glorious light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. He also uses lies and deception as his tools against the unbelievers. Sharing and preaching of the Gospel is so threatening to satan because he the good news of Jesus will set free people from his control and destroy his works..Once you hear the good news of Christ you come out of his authority and come into the Kingdom of God. Therefore preaching the Gospel is a threat to him. It becomes difficult to preach the Gospel in the world because the enemy makes us feel bad about "proselytizing" and shuts us up with fear that we will offend someone and appear "intolerant'. This fear keeps us off or makes it difficult to spread the good news of Jesus.

(2 Corinthians 4:4; Psalm 24:1) Legitimate authority is when one has a legal right or clam over another and is his own authority.. Usurping authority is not one's , rather taking authority by force. The authority satan has is usurped authority which is not his own. satan has taken what is God's what is not his own.He is not in submission to God,but a rebel, a usurper of God's authority.Only God has legitimate authority over us as He has rescued us from darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son He loves. Colossians 2:14-15 satan can be defeated at the cross because Christ has won the decisive battle on the cross and we have the power of the Holy Spirit to claim people for Christ's kingdom. satan can be still dangerous because he is still in the field fighting a guerrilla war. According to John 10:10a he is a thief who comes to steal ,kill and destroy what is God's. He retains power by deception as a liar and the father of lies (John 10:44b). Peter also warns us in 1 Peter 5:8-9 that he is a roaring lion who is dangerous and we must take the battle seriously.