The Glory of God

[Sean James]

Truth will only triumph in the life that yields to its transforming power! Let us allow God to melt our hearts with His love as we behold Jesus so we can gladly surrender fully to Him in saving faith to become partakers of His character--all of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing in a life that is brought into harmony with His law of love!

“My teaching is not Mine,” said Jesus, “but His that sent Me. If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from Myself.” John 7:16, 17, R. V. The question of these cavilers Jesus met, not by answering the cavil, but by opening up truth vital to the salvation of the soul. The perception and appreciation of truth, He said, depends less upon the mind than upon the heart. Truth must be received into the soul; it claims the homage of the will. If truth could be submitted to the reason alone, pride would be no hindrance in the way of its reception. But it is to be received through the work of grace in the heart; and its reception depends upon the renunciation of every sin that the Spirit of God reveals. Man's advantages for obtaining a knowledge of the truth, however great these may be, will prove of no benefit to him unless the heart is open to receive the truth, and there is a conscientious surrender of every habit and practice that is opposed to its principles. To those who thus yield themselves to God, having an honest desire to know and to do His will, the truth is revealed as the power of God for their salvation. These will be able to distinguish between him who speaks for God, and him who speaks merely from himself. The Pharisees had not put their will on the side of God's will. They were not seeking to know the truth, but to find some excuse for evading it; Christ showed that this was why they did not understand His teaching.

When we truly understand God's love and His teachings, we gladly can obey Him and share Christ with others--His living word--to be a blessing and an encouragement!

[Sean James]

The light shines--we choose whether we will walk in it or reject the help that Jesus offers us! Let us all choose to walk in the light as He is in the light!

The manifestation of divine power that had given to the blind man both natural and spiritual sight had left the Pharisees in yet deeper darkness. Some of His hearers, feeling that Christ's words applied to them, inquired, "Are we blind also?" Jesus answered, "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin." If God had made it impossible for you to see the truth, your ignorance would involve no guilt. "But now ye say, We see." You believe yourselves able to see, and reject the means through which alone you could receive sight. To all who realized their need, Christ came with infinite help. But the Pharisees would confess no need; they refused to come to Christ, and hence they were left in blindness,--a blindness for which they were themselves guilty. Jesus said, "Your sin remaineth." 

Christ came to take away our sins, and when we fully surrender to Him, all of the fruits of the Spirit will be seen in our lives without one missing as we are empowred to gladly obey God's law of love! Christ helps us infinitely!

[Sean James]

Praise the Lord for the blessing of getting to experience how much God loves us through our relationship with Jesus, our Good Shepherd! By the Holy Spirit abiding in us in complete surrender to Him, all of the fruits of the Spirit will be manifest in our lives without one missing as we are empowered to do God's will up to the light He has revealed to us!

However much a shepherd may love his sheep, he loves his sons and daughters more. Jesus is not only our shepherd; He is our "everlasting Father." And He says, "I know Mine own, and Mine own know Me, even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father." John 10:14, 15, R. V. What a statement is this!--the only-begotten Son, He who is in the bosom of the Father, He whom God has declared to be "the Man that is My fellow" (Zechariah 13:7),--the communion between Him and the eternal God is taken to represent the communion between Christ and His children on the earth!   

We are loved infinitely, and the more time we spend with God and appreciate His character, the more we will become like Him in mind and character through knowing more and more of God, for to know God is to love Him! Praise the Lord that He takes the initiative to seek us and save us, and our part is to behold Him, yield to Him, and cooperate with Him as we grow in His love revealed in affectionate obedience to God's law of love!

[Sean James]

Happy Sabbath!! What an incredible gift the Holy Spirit is to us! Because of Jesus' great sacrifice, the Father lovingly pours upon us the Holy Spirit, filling us with all the attributes of His divine nature--the fruit of the Spirit--without one missing! Gladly we are empowered to obey God up to the light He has revealed to us from the new heart given when we surrender fully to Him, and then we have the ongoing privilege to cooperate with Him in the work of character building to prepare for heaven!!

 The omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit is the defense of every contrite soul. Not one that in penitence and faith has claimed His protection will Christ permit to pass under the enemy's power. The Saviour is by the side of His tempted and tried ones. With Him there can be no such thing as failure, loss, impossibility, or defeat; we can do all things through Him who strengthens us. When temptations and trials come, do not wait to adjust all the difficulties, but look to Jesus, your helper. 

Jesus will help you, so turn to Him in every experience of life! His victory is ours by continual union and communion with Him! Praise the Lord!!

[Sean James]

Let us learn to appreciate the lessons of Christ and how we can be converted by yielding the whole heart to Him, to in turn go forth to bless others!

In the story of the good Samaritan, Christ illustrates the nature of true religion. He shows that it consists not in systems, creeds, or rites, but in the performance of loving deeds, in bringing the greatest good to others, in genuine goodness.   

"The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance" (Romans 2:4), and even if our lives have not been what Christ would have them be, we can be changed by beholding His love and receiving a new heart that enables us to grow in grace with a new character as we abide in Him. All of the fruits of the Spirit will be seen in our lives without one missing as long as we are fully surrendered to Christ. Then we will experience the impulse to help and bless others that will lead us to love from the overflow of Christ within us, the hope of glory!

[Sean James]

There are many parallels to the time of Christ's first advent and ministry to the ministry He has given His people heralding the three angels' messages (Revelation 14:6-12) as the world is now on the verge of His second coming. One of the parallels is the corruption and immorality we see permeating our society, affecting so many systems. But Jesus, our Savior and Example, focused on the work the Father gave Him in working to reach the hearts of people, as He knew that was what was needed for there to be any real change. When we surrender our whole heart to Christ, all of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing will be seen in our lives as we are empowered to obey God from the heart. No matter how corrupt things are in this world, we can each be converted through responding by faith to the grace of God and be missionaries to do good in our world to help prepare people for the kingdom of heaven. Christ will soon return, and His eternal government of love, peace and truth will reign forever.

The government under which Jesus lived was corrupt and oppressive; on every hand were crying abuses,--extortion, intolerance, and grinding cruelty. Yet the Saviour attempted no civil reforms. He attacked no national abuses, nor condemned the national enemies. He did not interfere with the authority or administration of those in power. He who was our example kept aloof from earthly governments. Not because He was indifferent to the woes of men, but because the remedy did not lie in merely human and external measures. To be efficient, the cure must reach men individually, and must regenerate the heart.   

While we live in this world, we are to make it better for our stay in it, and allow God to make us the salt and light that will help to restrain evil among men. By living a consistent life in Christ, others can be drawn to Christ and choose, by His grace, to resist evil. Praise the Lord!

[Sean James]

Jesus was ever a lover of children. He accepted their childish sympathy and their open, unaffected love. The grateful praise from their pure lips was music in His ears, and refreshed His spirit when oppressed by contact with crafty and hypocritical men. Wherever the Saviour went, the benignity of His countenance, and His gentle, kindly manner won the love and confidence of children.

And so can we be. When Jesus reigns in our hearts as King, the loveliness of His character--the fruits of the Spirit--will be revealed without even one missing! We will love children like He did and seek to lead them to Christ who has a heaven of blessings for them! Thankfully, He knows so well each child's life situation, His heart yearning over even the ones struggling with behavioral issues or trauma. He looks upon each child with compassion and pity with the desire to heal the heart that has been broken by sin.

The Saviour regards with infinite tenderness the souls whom He has purchased with His own blood. They are the claim of His love. He looks upon them with unutterable longing. His heart is drawn out, not only to the best-behaved children, but to those who have by inheritance objectionable traits of character. Many parents do not understand how much they are responsible for these traits in their children. They have not the tenderness and wisdom to deal with the erring ones whom they have made what they are. But Jesus looks upon these children with pity. He traces from cause to effect.

May we go forth to lead children to Christ with a tender, affectionate heart of love to bless and encourage others in the path of eternal life! By constant surrendered obedience to Jesus in harmony with His word, moved by His love, many more children (of all ages--for we are all God's children!!) will be converted to become part of the kingdom of God!

[Sean James]

What is really valuable? The lives of people saved for eternity because of Jesus' sacrifice for each of us! Christ was inviting the rich young ruler to follow the only path that would orient His character in the way of salvation, leading him to prioritize saving souls over accumulating earthly things. Oh, if he would have chosen to follow Christ instead of turn away! Let us learn from his example and follow Christ in self-surrender of all we have and are to do His will!

When Christ's followers give back to the Lord His own, they are accumulating treasure which will be given to them when they shall hear the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant; . . . enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." "Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." Matthew 25:23; Hebrews 12:2. The joy of seeing souls redeemed, souls eternally saved, is the reward of all that put their feet in the footprints of Him who said, "Follow Me."

Christ loves us too much to let us think that what this world offers is all that there is. When we put His kingdom first and surrender our whole heart to Him in true conversion, all of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing will be seen in our lives as we are empowered supernaturally by God to obey Him because we love Him!

[Sean James]

The only true direction of faith is complete surrender to Christ! Look to Christ and abide in His life, and we will have victory in Him! Death has been defeated by Christ and He invites us to look away from self to Him and trust His word over every other competing influence!

Still seeking to give a true direction to her faith, Jesus declared, "I am the resurrection, and the life." In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived. "He that hath the Son hath life." 1 John 5:12. The divinity of Christ is the believer's assurance of eternal life. "He that believeth in Me," said Jesus, "though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?" Christ here looks forward to the time of His second coming. Then the righteous dead shall be raised incorruptible, and the living righteous shall be translated to heaven without seeing death. The miracle which Christ was about to perform, in raising Lazarus from the dead, would represent the resurrection of all the righteous dead. By His word and His works He declared Himself the Author of the resurrection. He who Himself was soon to die upon the cross stood with the keys of death, a conqueror of the grave, and asserted His right and power to give eternal life.

All of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing will be seen in our lives as long as we are abiding in Christ in true conversion. Christ can keep us from falling into sin if we choose to continue to trust Him and learn of our continual need of Jesus! Even if we fall, He is able to cleanse and forgive the sins we confess to Him in true repentance, making it possible for us to overcome even as He did! Christ is fully divine and fully human, offering us His saving power and example to connect us with His life of victory!

[Sean James]

It's always a choice. Light shines from Jesus, but we choose whether we accept the light or not. The light of His character, received into the soul, will work reformation and transformation of character, producing all of the fruits of the Spirit in one who abides in full surrender to Jesus! He longs to reach all, but He will not force an entrance. Let's bring happiness to Jesus and open our hearts to His will

His life had been one of persecution and insult. Driven from Bethlehem by a jealous king, rejected by His own people at Nazareth, condemned to death without a cause at Jerusalem, Jesus, with His few faithful followers, found a temporary asylum in a strange city. He who was ever touched by human woe, who healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb, who fed the hungry and comforted the sorrowful, was driven from the people He had labored to save. He who walked upon the heaving billows, and by a word silenced their angry roaring, who cast out devils that in departing acknowledged Him to be the Son of God, who broke the slumbers of the dead, who held thousands entranced by His words of wisdom, was unable to reach the hearts of those who were blinded by prejudice and hatred, and who stubbornly rejected the light.

Jesus loves to reach hearts. Will you let Him reach your heart today?

[Sean James]

Happy Sabbath!! Love is of God, for "God is love." We are invited to enjoy the endless love expression that the Godhead has been experiencing for all of eternity by opening our hearts to the Holy Spirit! Then, the love that God experiences can be poured into us with all the manifestations of that love--including joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance! Not one of the attributes of love will be missing when the soul is truly converted, for conversion is the miracle of God making a person new from the heart! We can be kept from falling into sin by abiding in His love! By choosing Christ, we can enjoy the miracle of being made like Him in mind and character to go forth to bless others!

    The principles and the very words of the Saviour's teaching, in their divine beauty, dwelt in the memory of the beloved disciple. To his latest days the burden of John's testimony to the churches was, "This is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another." "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." 1 John 3:11, 16. 
     This was the spirit that pervaded the early church. After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, "the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own." "Neither was there any among them that lacked." "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all." Acts 4:32, 34, 33.

God is bringing revival and reformation to His church so we can again experience the unity and love that was manifest in the early church! Let's allow God's love to work in us this experience even now and invite others to enjoy the blessedness of His love!

[Sean James]

The Lord is gracious to save us like He did Zacchaeus! Let us praise God for the blessing of salvation as we surrender fully to Him!! Faith works by love and purifies the soul as we grow in grace and overcome sin by abiding in Jesus--all of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing will be manifest in our lives, helping us to grow in true obedience to all the light God has shown us in His word!

It is when Christ is received as a personal Saviour that salvation comes to the soul. Zacchaeus had received Jesus, not merely as a passing guest in his home, but as One to abide in the soul temple. The scribes and Pharisees accused him as a sinner, they murmured against Christ for becoming his guest, but the Lord recognized him as a son of Abraham. For "they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham." Galatians 3:7.   

Everything God has given us in Christ is for the purpose of blessing us to be a blessing to others! God is so compassionate! Hallelujah!

[Sean James]

Do you truly know God? Apparently Simon the Pharisee whom Christ healed of leprosy, when he saw Jesus allow Mary to anoint Him, had a certain idea of God that was not true to God's unselfish and merciful character. Christ sought to heal Simon's conception of His character and restore Simon's soul, even as He had done for Mary.

But it was Simon's ignorance of God and of Christ that led him to think as he did. He did not realize that God's Son must act in God's way, with compassion, tenderness, and mercy. Simon's way was to take no notice of Mary's penitent service. Her act of kissing Christ's feet and anointing them with ointment was exasperating to his hardheartedness. He thought that if Christ were a prophet, He would recognize sinners and rebuke them.

Thankfully, Christ's mission was not to destroy and condemn, but to uplift and heal. Even Simon, after Christ's heart-touching parable of the two debtors, was able to receive a true knowledge of God's character, and Simon became converted as a lowly, self-sacrificing disciple. Like Simon and Mary, we all need a Savior who can fill us with all of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing as long as we are truly surrendered to Him and walking in harmony with the true character of God as He reveals Himself to us, for His law of unselfish love is His character! Praise the Lord for the miracle of conversion available to all who come to experience how "the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance" (Romans 2:4).

[Sean James]

What high hopes the disciples had as Jesus entered Jerusalem before His crucifixion!!

This day, which seemed to the disciples the crowning day of their lives, would have been shadowed with gloomy clouds had they known that this scene of rejoicing was but a prelude to the suffering and death of their Master. Although He had repeatedly told them of His certain sacrifice, yet in the glad triumph of the present they forgot His sorrowful words, and looked forward to His prosperous reign on David's throne.

Christ had plainly shared that He would die, but the disciples forgot this in the excitement of the triumphal entry! May we realize that Christ's words shall be fulfilled, that even though we may have many blessings that seem like they can go on for quite some time, that a "time of trouble" is coming before Christ's second coming, and yet, as we learn to trust His word over our senses, He will help us be ready by abiding in Him in true conversion as all of the fruits of the Spirit will be manifest in the life yielded fully to Him, for the living Christ in the soul will empower us to obey Him from genuine love! Jesus is coming again!!

[Sean James]

Let us choose to be abiding in Christ so He can produce through us all of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing and lead us to truly obey Him from the heart! Coming in close touch with humanity as we see Jesus did, we learn what it means to truly bear fruit--to live to bless others in the way of our Heavenly Father's direction. Even the seemingly harsh judgments God manifests are for the benefit of His people to come to TRUE repentance and not continue in a path of destruction self-deceived. Oh, what infinite love of God in ALL He does for us!!

The cursing of the fig tree was an acted parable. That barren tree, flaunting its pretentious foliage in the very face of Christ, was a symbol of the Jewish nation. The Saviour desired to make plain to His disciples the cause and the certainty of Israel's doom. For this purpose He invested the tree with moral qualities, and made it the expositor of divine truth. The Jews stood forth distinct from all other nations, professing allegiance to God. They had been specially favored by Him, and they laid claim to righteousness above every other people. But they were corrupted by the love of the world and the greed of gain. They boasted of their knowledge, but they were ignorant of the requirements of God, and were full of hypocrisy. Like the barren tree, they spread their pretentious branches aloft, luxuriant in appearance, and beautiful to the eye, but they yielded “nothing but leaves.” The Jewish religion, with its magnificent temple, its sacred altars, its mitered priests and impressive ceremonies, was indeed fair in outward appearance, but humility, love, and benevolence were lacking.

Christ invites us to come with Him in all of our sinful unworthiness and be healed so He can make us into the people He knows we can be! Let not your fruitless self (for selfishness is death) discourage you from coming to Christ, but rather let your sense of need motivate you to come to Christ and never let your mind wander from His abiding presence which alone can make us fruitful for His glory and kingdom!