By His Wounds

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 6:23 (ESV)

The wages, or payment for sin is death. Every single one of us deserves to die. THat’s it. We deserve nothing else, only death. Yet, through Christ Jesus we are given the FREE gift of God, eternal life. You know what this means guys and girls? Someone else paid the price for us. And that someone is Jesus.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed. -Isaiah 53:5 (ESV)

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors. -Isaiah 53:12 (ESV)

I encourage you to read all of Isaiah 53, it’s an amazing chapter and one of my favorites. For now though, let’s focus on these to passages. He was wounded for our transgressions, we sinned against God, we were and are the transgressors, yet we are left unharmed and God’s son bore the wounds that we deserved. He was crushed for our iniquities, again God poured out the punishment for our sins on Christ instead of us. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, chastisement, that is a big word my friends, but it means punishment. We have peace because He took the punishment that should have been ours. And with his stripes we are healed, we are healed guys. Because of the stripes on Christ’s back we have been made whole. We are redeemed by His blood and because of Him we can stand before God blameless. Because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. Jesus took MY sin upon Him as he hung on the cross. ALL my sin, past present and future, it’s all covered by His blood. He makes intercession for me before God, I am still a sinner and sometimes I screw up, but Jesus is always there as my bridge, my gateway back to my heavenly father.

By the wounds of the only begotten Son of God we have been made new. WOW! Doesn’t that make you want to just praise His name? Yeah, we’re still going to screw up and make mistakes, but as long as we have put our trust in God, Jesus has paid for our sins. Verse 6 of Isaiah 53 (ESV) says:

All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

Praise God! My debt is paid! Hallelujah! My Chains are Gone!

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Dust and Ashes is My Name

Okay, so I realize that this title is not exactly the most encouraging one in the world, in fact I realize that this entire post may not seem to be the most encouraging post ever, but stick with, I’m going somewhere with all of this I promise. It’ll take me the week to get there, but I’m going somewhere.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,-Romans 3:23 (ESV)

Okay, so I’m pretty sure that we’ve all heard this verse right? Like a million times, especially if you’ve grown up to church and attended VBS. But have you ever really stopped and thought about it? I mean REALLY thought about it? It says we have fallen short of the Glory of God. This means that there is a gap, that we can never hope to fill this gap. We are nothing but dust and ashes compared to God. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, so often I’ve heard that quoted in relation to funerals, but you know what, it’s all we are on our own. By ourselves we are absolutely nothing. We are sinner, dirty rotten wretchs. Nothing but worms. The scum of the earth. I know that might hurt, but hey it’s the truth. And you have to understand this before I can tell the rest of what I want to tell you this week.

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Prayer-Talking to God!

When was the last time you actually talked to God? I mean seriously talked to God and not just gave Him a list of things that you need or want! If you would have asked me that a week or so ago I would have had to say a while to be honest. God has been teaching me alot lately about what it means to truly love Him… I’ve been thinking lately how the God of the universe wants to talk to me and so what stops me from talking to Him? Lord knows I talk to everyone else… Is it that I do not have time? I have enough time to txt plenty of people though. Do I think that He is not interested or just doesn’t care? He gave His life for me though… Then I began thinking how to grow a friendship you have to talk. Tonight I was babysitting two little girls who were friends and one of them was bossy and didn’t care to listen to what the other friend wanted to do. Now you can guess how that turned out. it wasn’t pretty…. So why do we treat God that way? The coolest part about it all though is that even when we treat God like He is worth nothing He still loves us! He picks right back up as if we had never betrayed Him. This is what you call TRUE love! My final thought was, “If He loves me unlike anyone else then why do i not give Him the time of day?!”. Needless to day I’ve had some amazing conversations with God lately!! When things have been tough He has listened and comforted me, when things were great He has laughed and been joyful with me, and when i just wasn’t sure what to do He has listened and through His word He has guided me! So here is my challenge….TALK TO GOD! He wants to hear from you! He loves you! 🙂

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3rd step to your testimony!

Finally, we made it! This is my favorite part of sharing my testimony…. 🙂 This is where you can share how your life has changed since you accepted Christ. As I mentioned before, before i accepted Christ I had no hope, there was no reason to live, and life had no purpose. How has God changed your life? This is the time that you can give glory to God! There is not really much else to say about this, but what has God done in your life? Think back over all the years…It is amazing how God will put something in your life so that later on you can help someone else who is going through the exact same thing! Romans 8:28 says, “Everything that happens is for our good and His glory.”. So, give Him the glory! Remember….we will overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the words of our testimony!!

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2nd step to your testimony!

Remember what the second step to your testimony was? What the circumstances were when you asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior! What is your story? Below are some questions that you may want to ask yourself and include the answers in your testimony! You do not have to use everyone of them, but just a few!

*How old were you when you accepted Christ?

*Where were you when you accepted Christ?

*How did you feel?

*Who shared with you?

*Do you remember the time or place?

These are just a few questions to get you thinking… Again, this is YOUR story! There is absolutely no wrong or right way to tell it! The only thing that  you could do wrong is to not give God the glory… Also, when you are talking about how you felt… I’m not meaning, “I felt really good” or something rather trivial. I mean did you feel humbled, in awe, undeserving, loved, etc? For each one of us this will be different. To be totally honest I do not think that there has been 2 times I’ve ever shared my testimony and said the same thing. God will tell you what to say each time! Just for your sake it helps to have an idea ahead of time!

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Step one to your testimony!

Hi! I often think, “They know this….why am I even talking about this?” when I post things on here, yet we all need reminders at times. So, if this seems trivial or elementary please be patient! There may be someone else who needs to read this or God is just trying to teach me something and so that is why he laid  it on my heart! ok? 🙂 Word of Life splits your testimony up into 3 parts… What my life was like before I accepted Christ, the time and place that I accepted Christ, and what my life has been like since I accepted Christ. Today we are going to discuss the first one! What was your life like before you accepted Christ? Now I totally understand that many of you accepted Christ at a young age and so therefore you were not an alcoholic, drug dealing, God hating 3 year old before you accepted Christ! You were still a sinner though… Romans 3;23 (NIV) says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”. Basically… you had sinned and therefore you were in need of a savior! When I share my testimony I often point out that I was without hope. Although life wasn’t that difficult there was still no purpose in life… God gave me purpose! What did God change about you? Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who could know it?”.  I way to often hear people who were raised in church since birth and who accepted Christ at a young age say how there testimony isn’t that important and that God could never really use their story…. That is satan! He is the one telling you that!! God promises that His word will not return void! So just a little encouragement for today…. Do not bite into satan’s lie that your testimony is any less important than other peoples! Honor God by sharing what He brought your from!

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We WILL overcome!

~Revelation 12:11a (NIV) They overcame him  by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony!~

Have you ever felt like you could not overcome something? It could be something as serious as an addiction to alcohol or cutting to something that isn’t quite as serious, yet very real as bad thoughts, a particular school subject, or just loving your brothers and sisters. No matter what it is….there is hope! There is a song that our church has sung multiple times that includes this verse (I will post a link in the comment section) and it amazes me every time how real this verse is.

Let me break it down a little bit though…just to make sure you understand it! “By the blood of the lamb” is talking about Jesus christ! The blood that He shed for you and I…. “By the word of their testimony” is talking about you and I! Our testimony! Jennifer’s definition of testimony would simply be, “Sharing what God has done in your life”. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about the moment that you accepted Christ! I’m sure He has done thousands of things in your life since then! So, this week we are going to discuss our testimonies and how we can overcome whatever life throws at us through the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony!

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We can love because He loved us first

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

¹² No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. ¹³ By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. ¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶ And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

¹⁷ Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. ¹⁹ We love Him because He first loved us.

²⁰ If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? ²¹ And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.”

1 John 4:7-21 (NKJV)

Being Valentine’s Day, this is the day of the year that a lot of people are thinking about love.  So I had planned to post 1 Corinthians 13 – the love chapter.  Well, this morning I was looking for verses about love, and decided maybe I should post this passage.  Then in Sunday school, one of the verses Mr. Craig asked us to look up was from this chapter, and Pastor Jim’s sermon was on this passage.  It’s just amazing how God works everything together!

I think this passage is a wonderful definition and summary of the concept of love.  Here are some of the main points I got from Pastor Jim’s sermon.

• vv. 7-8 – Love comes from God.  There is no way we can show true, agape, putting-others-before-ourselves love unless we know God as our Savior. 
• v. 8b – Love doesn’t define God.  God defines love.
• vv. 9-10 – God’s love is revealed through Christ.  He didn’t just talk about love, He demonstrated it through Christ.  We shouldn’t just talk about love, we should demonstrate it.
• v. 12 – No one can see God, but they can see us.  Their view of our Savior may depend on how we demonstrate Him to them.

This is a challenge our Bible study teacher left us with at the retreat I’ve talked about before.  Does our love for people show through in our actions and demonstrate that we belong to Him?   

 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. ³⁵ By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35 (NKJV)

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!  🙂

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Every Life Can Make a Difference

I just wanted to share this interview with you all.  The Tebow story is such a testimony of God’s faithfulness and how God makes no mistakes.

http://www.focusonthefamily.com/nsc/box/video_tebow.aspx

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It is Finished! He Returned Victorious!

“’ For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, ¹¹ so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.’”  Isaiah 55:10-11 (ESV)

Ok, think about the water cycle.  Remember from middle school science class?  The clouds are droplets of water collected on dust and other particles all gathered together way up in the atmosphere.  Due to changes in atmospheric pressure and other circumstances (but ultimately by God’s command), this water begins to fall from the sky at some point, in the form of rain or snow.  But this precipitation doesn’t just immediately evaporate back into clouds.  First it lands on fields and buildings, in gutters, streets, and ponds.  Some of it eventually drains into streams which lead to rivers which dump in the ocean.  Some of it soaks into the ground where it gets absorbed by plant roots to help them grow and produce.  No matter where it goes first, some of the water always somehow gets evaporated back into the air to form clouds once again.

Back in Bible times, they didn’t know all of the details about evaporation, atmospheric pressure, and other things we now know about the water cycle.  But that’s what God is talking about through Isaiah.  He compares His word to rain that comes down to us and doesn’t return until it has accomplished what He sent it to do.

A new realization came over me when I read this passage a few days ago.  Jesus is the Word made flesh (John 1:14)!  Think about that in this verse!  Jesus came from God down here to earth, and He didn’t return until He had completed the work He was sent to do.

“I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” John 17:4-5 (ESV)

Not only did He minister to hundreds, possibly thousands of people during His earthly life; but by His death, He ministered to every person that ever has lived and ever will live.  Jesus came to pay the sin-debt for all of mankind.  On the cross He proclaimed “It is finished!”  It is done!  His work is complete!  Because of His death we no longer must be separated from God forever!  Let’s just spend some time praising God today for Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, who accomplished what He was sent to do.

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