robertprice

Jesus has finished the work allocated to Him as a human being, by His Father, and was therefore ready to be re-united with God in Spirit. The comfort for us is that the Holy Spirit, promised as the Advocate earlier by Jesus, who would help us at all times, would henceforth be available to true believers after the Day of Pentecost. So Jesus' absence from this realm meant joy and blessing for ALL.

We learn that there was no doubt at all that Jesus was a human being in addition to His divine status. He chose to cast the latter aside in His crucifixation to experience the full force of a horrible death in order to satisfy the just requirements of God's Law, in that 'there can be no remission for sins except by the shedding of blood'. So Jesus was love and kindness to the human race right up to His end. His experience on the cross was in compliance with the Father's will, as a result of which we now all enjoy fellowship with Him. In short, it was the love of Christ that dignified His death.

The fourth Word teaches us of how utterly committed God and His only Son were in seeking the salvation of the World through this extreme torment and suffering. And done for the prime reason of Love for we wretched beings ! And so our faith should be all the more committed when we realise this fact. The effect of our understanding of these facts should lead us to our total committment also in honour, gratitude and love for the Saviour and th sacrifice we cannot fully understand.

Ultimately, it was the Human Race whose sin called for the only way of the Perfect Sin Offering in Jesus. The players in the historic events, being Pilate, the Chief Priests etc., were just the figureheads of Man's apparent destruction of God's only Son. They were blinded to the truth, as Paul later says. So mankind's sin was finally disclosed in all its horror and appalling selfishness in the closing chapter of Jesus' physical life (pre-resurrection). We present generation and all who preceded us must also bear the blame for Christ's death, as God in His mercy and wisdom, ordained this sacrifice to cover our sins in order that we might have the fellowship He so wanted. Jesus was praying for all of mankind and its ignorance of God that causes sin to flourish.

God's promise is the assurance that all things in a Christian's life are working together for the ultimate good. The recipients of this promise are those wo have responded to the gospel message and have clearly understood the sacrifice of Christ of love for our sakes, It means I think that however viewed by ourselves as anything less than ideal, in God's own time we will see the utter perfection of His workings in and around us. The promise is given only to those who have accepted Jesus as Lord along with the need for His sacrificial death uniting us with the Father. The hope for me is that every apparent adverse circumstance in my life is known by the Father, who "will not allow me to be tested above that whuch I am able to bear"

To set one's mind on the Spirit is surely effectively to surrender our thoughts willingly to His purposes, all those that will produce those wonderful fruits of His ! It is by remembering our Saviour's perfectly-surrendered life to His Father, bringing, as in no other way, that release from guilt that setting our minds on things of the flesh had produced for us. If minds are set on things of a sinful nature, we Christians will hear the Spirit talking to us about this state of affairs through our consciences and those fruits of His will be beyond our grasp, much as we may want them.

Obedience to the law cannot save anyone, as 'we have all sinned (and come short of the glory of God)' no matter how little or how much, and we are told that to be guilty of even one sin only is tantamount to being guilty of the lot ! So it could never be that any man or woman could have avided sin completely due to the inherent sinful nature within themselves, being that lunfortunate legacy from Adam. That is the weak link here, I think. To save us from this terrible fate, we need to ask the forgiveness for our sins of God by the believing that His Son, by deliberate divine plan, became the only sin offering that could appease God's wrath. In the Old Testament, sin offerings of animals were the way to atone temporarily for the nation's sin, until their next violation ! It will be remembered that 'without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission for sin.' Now complete faith in Jesus as the perfect sin offering, has led us to this new and wonderful relationship with God !

It appears to me that Paul is talking about how he himself was as an honest law-abiding Jew but not yet a Christian.

It was expressed by Jesus when he said that out of the human heart proceeds all sorts or vice and corruption, from which absolutely no-one can be exempt. So in our flesh alone, we are corrupted and depraved. I think that there is a remnant of God's original goodness within us, which may differ from person to person; for example one may be kind always to children yet hate others, and again, one may love the marriage state yet **** after looseness. Modern man, especially these days, with his vast amount of technological skill, seems to think that basic holiness, if in fact he considers it at all, is apparent in all, as to accept otherwise seem to be alien to his modern thinking, as he has doubtless not searched the scriptures, considering them to be 'old hat'. he scrtipturtes of curse clearly differ in pronoucing ALL men to be lost and corrupt in their natural state.

The law is God's statement of how to live a life that is all-pleasing to Him. In that respect, of course, it is good indeed. What it doesn't do for individuals is to equip them in any way for the obedience to it. Knowing the law, even for the most strong-minded and devout, cannot in itself save, as it is an impossibility for man with his sinful nature to be obedient in every aspect. And that appears to be the problem inasmuch as the law, good though it is, is impossible to be kept in its entirety.

We would not be bettter off by being ignorant of part of God's full range of commandments - it would be like mixing and matching to our own selfish ends. No, if we are seriously to consider God's Law, its implications and its effects upon us, we surely have to regard the whole lot. The flesh, that human beast within us, may try to ignore covetousness, but sooner or later, it has to explore that avenue, often with devastating results. That is the nature of our 'Flesh'.

Paul refers to 'flesh' I think to mean the carnal nature within us that is unregenerate. Thankfully, ity can be controlled by the Spirit within all Christians.

Good doctrine, as taught us from God's Word, will ensure that we walk correctly before the Lord. And this doctrine should be revered and cherished above all other forms of dictates as itmhas been received diredctly from the Lord himself and just for us ! We therefore should be avoiding doctrine that smacks of man-made origins. For example, the Bloodless variety, so beloved of apostasy-like denominations. " Without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission for sins"

No, no place for 'independent freedom' for a Christian. He has placed himself at the service of Jesus, or as Paul puts it, as a slave. It is 'The Old Man' within us, another of Paul's favourite constuctions, that often desires to go it alone. We must therefore resist all attempts for Satan to lure us back to selfish and carnal ways and thoughts. We hesitate to 'nail our colours to the mast', so to speak, for various reasons all unsound of course. Satan's lies about the Truth, if entertained, can bring doubt and deception into our hearts, which is certainly not conducive to vibrant Christian testimony. It also would depend to some degree on the type of person you are upon conversion. Thus a timid and self-deprecating person would be most hesitant to testify to the Lord's grace until that person is more firmly under the control of God's Spirit when he can cheerfully and honestly give voice to his gratitude for God's grace in Jesus.

Gideon's obedience to God's calling and the subsequent action of deliverance from the Midianites and the nation's wholehearted return to worshipping God was Gideon's influence for good upon the Israelite nation. The continuing effect of his influence was the forty years of peace that ensued unil his death. Thereafter, sadly it became a different story with further backsliding by the nation.....

I feel that being unfaithful is akin to adultery towards God as we have, as Christians, vowed to serve Him continuously and steadfastly. So by even the slightest deviance from this stance causes us effectively to be adulterers. The analogy would be that Christians are considered to be The Bride of Christ so that being unfaithful in this context, is certainly tantamount to adultery. As a recent-returned Christian, after many years of wilderness wandering, I am finding Satan active in trying to discourage me in my new and wonderful walk with Jesus. I am so thankful to Him for all the surprising things He has done for and in me, that when tempted, as I have said, I thnk Him for His mercy and love !

The reign of sin, if left unattended, seeks to make us obedient to its nature. But we are now new creatures in Christ so that our eyes are firmly openend to sin and its desire for us. So we now offer ourselves to God through Christ as being obedient to Him alone using all members and faculties.

I am learning, by the testimonies of others, that the successful walk in the Christian faith, is a process, and not to be awarded without the desire for re-alignment with principles firmly laid down in the Word. So a constant examination of one's heart is required and anything untoward to be brought before the Lord for correction.

I think that Gideon should not have asked for any material reward for his part in this story, rather he should have been content to glorify God for his goodness. Apparently he made an image from the gold which the Israelites revered, if not worshipped. So I am surprised indeed, that following this error, the land had rest for forty years until Gideon's death. God kept his side of the covenant until Gideon had died, at which time, the Israelites again entered into a worship wilth the false god, Baal.

Gideon rightly refused to become a King over Israel because after all that had happened in recent times, he was fully aware now of God's sovereignty, whereas before this adventure with God, his faith was minimal, to say the least. He would have realised indeed from God's various orders, that God alone had been responsible for the victory over the Midianites and in so believing, he would have ascribed all the praise and resultant glory to the all-powerful Lord, Although his faith up to the time of his calling was weak, he would have had knowledge of the covenant that God had made with the children of Israel upon leaving the wilderness. To place himself in any way as a ruler or hallowed representative of the people, would heve been treason indeed. The people of Israel had had a recent history of mixed loyalties to God and false gods, i.e.Baal, and in the comparative quiet of the aftermath of the battles, seemed to be pulled back to this shallow knowledge and trust in God's original promises. So calling for Gideon to become their King, did not seem to them any great apostasy at that time.

Being buried, for those having a baptism by full immersion in water, is considering that the immersion of the whole body somehow represents Christ's death on the cross, and the moment of complete immersion, no matter how short or long, unites us with Christ's actual death. That is death to sin for He died for our sins. Rising from the water, signifies that we have risen with Christ and can no longer be under the power of sin. Symbolic maybe, but to the true convert, very real experiences indeed.

With our baptism, we are publicly acknowledging that our sins are forgiven by Jesus and that when we arise from the waters we will have that newness of life with our Saviour, so wondrous indeed.

The point of this remarkable change is when we are convicted of sin and righteousness by the Holy Spirit and are led to surrender our lives to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Baptism should follow on this. Having died with Christ, we are then formally dead to sin which should have no more dominion over us.

God wanted to show the Israelites that a victory over the larger enemy had to be attributable to Himself alone as a means of restoring the faith to the nation, who had of course compromised their beliefs in recent times and no longer had that real faith in God their Deliverer and their sovereign Lord. Hence, in reducing of Gideon's army to a tiny band, the routing of the enemy, far greater in number, had to be God's doing which would be very apparent to the Israelites. Gideon may have felt that God's requirement in this matter was inadvisable and unsound. Remember, he had only just found the living God and although great signs and wonders were performed, he would no doubt have had that stomach-churning feeling, as we all have had, when asked to deplete his army that may have meant certain ruin, humanly speaking. I like to think that Gideon considered the possibility of defeat but was then strengthened by the Spirit by encouragement from his previous meetings with the Lord and then firmly settled upon God's plan trusting Him to bring about what appeared to be humanly iompossible. "With God, all things are possible"

This is indeed strong stuff. Before the law was given, I suppose the Ten Commandments are thought of here, there could be no accountability for the sins of the people,. Sin did indeed exist prior to the law, but in its absence, sin could not be identified as something wrong in a demonstrable way. Perhaps a person's conscience was 'the policeman' inside each person, indicating to him what was acceptable or not. Having given Law, then sin was unmasked for what it was and even the most godly of men could see that it was impossible to keep permanently. So Jesus' sacrificial death following a blameless and totally 'law-abiding' life, somehow paid the price or penalty for all of mankind's sins in the eyes of God. But of course dependent upon their having confessed and repented and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ fo what he had accomplished.