Are You Passionate About the Truth? Jesus is Truth

As you read about Paul’s missionary journeys in the book of Acts, you find a pattern.  Each time he entered a city, he first went to the synagogue.  He would be cast out of the synagogue and would begin to teach in the streets or in houses nearby.  Rejection never deterred him, though he faced it everywhere he went.  He had been stoned, left for dead, beaten unrelentingly until blood poured from him flesh, thrown into prison, spit on, and yet, he marched on spreading the gospel truth.  His journeys long, fatigue nor defeat a word he considered as he spread the news.  What was it that made him so bold and passionate about the truth he marched back into a city after being stoned and left for dead?  It was his love for God.  A love so great desired God’s Glory be seen and honored by all.

Are you or I that passionate about the truth?  Jesus, the Son of God, the very essence of God came, lived a perfect life, beaten, died on a cross to pay the penalty of our sins, rose from the grave victorious, and is seated on the right hand of God the Father.  Look around you.  Is not Christ’s name at stake while the secularists want to destroy all who proclaim Him as Lord and Savior? So, are you passionate about the truth?  Jesus is the only truth that really matters. He is the only hope for this world.  As we sat idly by while the minority removed God from the schools, while moving in secular humanist atheistic ideologies, we have watched as anger, division, and violence rise.  Without God, where is hope?  No wonder people search endlessly for self, where self cannot be found.

Paul Passionate about the Truth

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What Is the Importance of Spiritual Discernment?

Spiritual Discernment is defined as a decision-making process in which an individual makes a discovery that can lead to future action. In the process of Christian spiritual discernment God guides the individual to help them arrive at the best decision.  That is essential in this Christian journey; because, we need the Spiritual Discernment afforded by the indwelling Holy Spirit to guide us each step of the way.  Sometimes we face very difficult decisions and are uncertain as to the way to go, until the doors all shut before us and around us.  That does not mean we throw up our hands and quit.  Rather with hope filled expectation we await the Holy Spirit to open the right door.  At other times we face severe tribulations and wonder if we could have gotten off track, only to find the Holy Spirit filling our heart with peace and joy amid the trials.

Certainly, this was the case for Paul as he embarked on his second missionary journey.  He was provided with abounding faith in his heart, along side a mind filled with spiritual discernment for the journey.  The ups and downs of life presented themselves all along the way, yet he remained focused on Jesus Christ, his Lord and Savior every step of the way.  Early along this journey he met Timothy who became as dear to him as a son would be.  After Timothy accepted Christ, Paul recommend he be circumcised.  Not because it was needed for salvation, as Paul had fought to prove in the previous chapter.  Rather this was done to open more doors for Timothy as he grew in the ministry of Christ.  As Paul later wrote, “take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak” (1Corinthians 8:9).

Spiritual Discernment for Travel

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When the Ruins Are Rebuilt and People Seek God

The meeting continued as the Apostles and elders met.  Jewish leaders and new converts had wanted to teach a doctrine proclaiming a necessity of circumcision and the law being part of the requirement for Gentiles to become Christians.  Paul and Barnabas had not been able to persuade them any differently, so the council met.  Peter reminded them that even though he had been skeptic, God had clearly shown him that Gentiles and Jew alike were to be saved by grace alone through faith alone.  The Jewish nation had proven their own inability to follow God by the works of the law-a yoke they could not bear.  The Holy Spirit’s baptism of Cornelius happened just as with the first Jewish believers, not requiring circumcision. Then James speaks of when the ruins are rebuilt, and people seek God as he quotes Amos.

Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written:

16 ‘After this I will return
And will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down;
I will rebuild its ruins,
And I will set it up;
17 So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
Even all the Gentiles who are called by My name,
Says the [d]Lord who does all these things.’

Old Testament Proclamations

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The Key-A Poem

Most of my Christian life I have wondered what is the key to living out this life with all the love, power and strength I have been so graciously given.  I do believe the book of Ephesians is the key.  First in knowing my true identity in Jesus Christ gained by grace alone through faith alone.  Even my faith was a gift from God’s Almighty Hand of Grace toward me.  This past week I spent a lot of time studying Ephesians 3:14-21.  I listened to John McArthur’s sermons and realized there within these verses lay the key to empowering my life for the work of Christ.

With it lay also the realization of just how much my heart fails in loving as Jesus loves.  There are those moments when a thought arises, even for a second of jealousies, desires, and selfishness.  Will my heart ever be what it needs to be?  Yes, one day.  For all the promises of God are yes in Jesus Christ, so that I will look like Him one day.  Until that day, I will daily fall before His throne of Grace and I will keep my eyes focused on Him, repenting of every selfish thought as it arises.  The victory is mine because of the redemptive work already done on my behalf by Jesus.  All I got to do is lean in to Him.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not [a]carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ

The Key

God’s Spirit does within me lie

The strength on which I must rely

The blood of Christ did set me free

That I might live in liberty

 

Yet, liberty demands my all

Surrender to the Spirit’s call

That filled with joy from Christ within

I rise above myself and sin

 

His presence filling me with love

That I might soar on clouds above

The clamor, hate, and jealous rage

That holds me in this wretched cage

 

Oh, that my mind might comprehend

Only His love can ever mend

This heart so broken, filled with pride

The evil darkness that I hide

 

The depth and breadth of Love He gave

As on the Cross He died to save

Me from the wretchedness within

To wash me white from crimson sin

 

Dear Lord, please take all of me

Fill my heart, that I might see

Only You, and nothing more

So, like an eagle I might soar

 

Your Spirit as my only guide

In Christ, I rest-in Him abide

Therein I rise to heights unknown

While prostrate lie before thy throne

 

Oh, fill me God with all of You

Until You are all that I view

Your Glorious Light might then shine bright

To this dark world in need of light

 

DO YOU KNOW CHRIST AS YOUR SAVIOR AND LORD?

If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord: I urge you to go to my page titled How to Be Saved by clicking on this link.  There is nothing more important than this; because,  He is the way, the truth and the life. Therefore, I urge you to seek Him today.

Poems PREVIOUSLY

The Mystery

I Am in Christ all I Am Not

The Great Pleasure of His Will-a Poem

If I in Silence Do Dismiss  (A Poem)

But for God, the Sorrows that Abound- a poem

How to Live a Life of Grace as God’s Beloved

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©Effie Darlene Barba, 2019
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned except for my own books. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

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How Is the Yoke of Jesus Not the Law?

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart. Ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).  In this world we are in some ways under a yoke of some kind—whether it be the yoke of Government, the yoke of work, family, finances, health or even our own fleshly desires.  Yet, Jesus bids us to take his yoke upon us that we might find rest.  How is the Yoke of Jesus different and not the same as the Old Testament law?  And how does His yoke provide us rest from all the other yokes that bind us?

In Acts 15, there rises a new challenge for the early church.  There were many who spread a doctrine regarding the believers needing to all be circumcised and brought under the Mosaic law in order to be saved.  There arose such an uproar among the believers in the church of Antioch that Paul and Barnabas were sent to the elders and Apostles in Jerusalem to secure an answer.  Paul and Barnabas had stood for the truth of salvation through grace alone by faith alone; but their words were being drowned out by the crowds who questioned their authority in the matter.  So, they returned to speak to the council in Jerusalem.

There in Jerusalem the council met.  The Holy Spirit evidently strongly fixed within the council, filling every member with wisdom and truth to respond.

The Yoke of Jesus Not the Yoke of the Law

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