Author: Hank

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The need for acceptance is an incredibly powerful driving force in us humans. In Greek fraternities pledges endure all sorts of hazing in order to be accepted into the fraternity. In street gangs the rituals are much worse; some even require you to kill a person in order to gain their acceptance.

What about God? What do we as believers have to DO to gain His acceptance? Eph 1:5-6 in the KJV provides the awesome answer. It reads: “(God) having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He MADE US accepted in the Beloved.”

So what do we have to do? We believe in Jesus, and incredibly that same sonship comes to us: now we are even seated WITH HIM in heavenly places, Eph 2:6. That’s GOD for you, my friend. It is something HE DID FOR US. “IN THE BELOVED!” As believers are IN Christ Jesus, and IN HIM acceptable to GOD! Hallelujah!

Acceptance in the world is so different! There we have to perform. Shine. Play by someone else’s rules. Conform to their standards or face rejection. And man-made religion is no different. It’s the same kind of performance based acceptance. It is based on the same evil concept that says you have to work to make yourself acceptable and pleasing to God. Nonsense.

Man-made religion burns you out. It perpetuates human sacrifice. Think about it: your life, or your spouse, your children…sacrificed on the altar of acceptance.

Understand me, the love of God is not for sale. You cannot buy it or perform for it. His acceptance and approval is a free gift that comes through Christ alone, by grace alone! Remember, Eph 1:6 says HE MADE US ACCEPTED!

Jesus refused to play the acceptance game. He shocked everyone – there were rules that disqualified people from approaching God. Rules about ethnicity, behavior, gender, and health. If you happened to be a sinful foreign woman with leprosy in Jesus’ day you had 4 strikes against you, my friend! But Jesus accepted sinful people. And foreigners. And women. And lepers.

We talk about the need to accept Jesus, but understand, Jesus accepts all who come to Him. That’s even more important. Law based religion will disqualify you, and you’ll have to perform for those who call the shots. But truly, it is Jesus who has qualified you my friend, it is a gift by God’s grace, not your performance. Today, share this good news of acceptance in the belovedimage, and help others —— COME ALIVE!

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As I have said before, Jesus IS the Vine, we ARE the branches. Happened when we said YES to Jesus. He abides in us – eternally. We abide in Him – eternally. This astonishing fact is hard to grasp, for our minds are so conditioned by the world to think like the world, not heaven.

So instead of abiding from the get-go, we struggle to be accepted – but we already ARE accepted in the beloved, for as believers we ALREADY ARE in UNION with Him! We struggle for approval, we wonder if we have done ‘enough’ for God. But friend, that’s like running backward from the finish line! Stop your struggle. You ARE IN CHRIST, and as righteous as God Himself – 2 Cor 5:21 – for you ARE in UNION with Him. You didn’t do this; He did, for by His GRACE we have been saved, and that through the gift of faith He has given us. Eph 2:8.

Finding this rest can take time, like the rest of your life! Paul tells the Colossians in Col 2:10 “…in Him you have been made complete.” But a few verses earlier in 1:28 he said he labors, hard, to present every man complete in Christ. Those Colossian believers were complete in Christ, but like most of us, they DID NOT KNOW IT, and were engaged in fruitless struggle for approval!

Or take those carnal Corinthians, struggling with envy and jealously, even gluttony and drunkenness at communion. Yet here is how Paul begins his letter to them, 1 Cor 1: parts of 4-9 MSG: “Every time I think of you—and I think of you often!—I thank God for your lives of free and open access to God, given by Jesus. There’s no end to what has happened in you—it’s beyond speech, beyond knowledge. [GNB expresses that as “For in UNION with Christ you have become rich in all things”] The evidence of Christ has been clearly verified in your lives.

Just think—you don’t need a thing, you’ve got it all! And God himself is right alongside to keep you steady and on track until things are all wrapped up by Jesus. God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, will never give up on you. Never forget that!”

So, dear believer, understand: you ARE in union with the Living God. You may be living like those Corinthians, or Colossians. But wait! You are approved, you are in UNION with God. So grow up! Study Jesus – that’s YOUR character now!  Don’t you realize it – you are in Him – He is in you – and in Him – you have COME ALIVE!

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Jesus IS the Vine, we ARE the branches. Happened when we said YES to Jesus. Now Father, Son and Holy Spirit abide in us: they make their HOME in us. And they are not going anywhere.

Ro 6:3 says when we believed we were baptized into His death – we have died to sin and are alive to God. Ro 6:11. In this baptism, we went into those spiritual waters looking like Adam and came out looking like Jesus. Close your eyes and see that, my friend!

There is no longer any separation between God and a believer. We are JOINED to the Lord and ONE SPIRIT with HIM. 1 Cor 6:17. Consider Ro 7:4 where Paul says we have died to the Law, all those do’s and don’ts, and have been JOINED to another: JESUS. Now we serve in newness of the Spirit.

Sadly, so many Christians have trouble understanding this JOINING, this UNION that has been accomplished. If we used marriage as an example, they would be acting like they were single despite the fact that they were married. Someone who lives this way will miss out on most all of the benefits that marriage brings.

In the Old Covenant, unholy things would make whatever they touched unholy. Lepers. Keep away from me! Bleeding people. Keep away! Gentiles! Etc. But Jesus cleansed the lepers, the bleeders, the Gentiles, Samaritans and tax-gatherers. Jesus cleanses you. He has made you holy, sanctified. Forever. So now live that way. Stop thinking and acting as though God is far away and you have to sacrifice to get closer.

We are already joined to Him, one Spirit with Him. How about marveling at the wonders of the CROSS and what our loving God did for us there? What we could never do, He did, and took the punishment for all our wrongdoing. And offers us UNITY with Him for all ETERNITY. Pretty good, eh?

Stop with doom and gloom thinking; just STOP IT. Stir up your faith in God. He IS with you and wants to make your life a wonderful testimony. A good one.
He is the LIVING GOD and He is here to help us: COME ALIVE!

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The old and new covenants are fundamentally different. The old was based on our promises to God, while the new is based on God’s promises to us. The old fails because we break our promises, while the new endures because God’s word lasts forever. The new covenant is filled with God’s promises that are based upon who God is: AWESOME in His mercies and grace and lovingkindness.

When we said YES to Jesus, we were put into union with Him. Eternally. He IS the Vine forever, we ARE the branches forever. Jn 15:5. And how about Jn 14:20 “In that day (that’s NOW, after Calvary) you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” Think about that – it is mind blowing!

And in Jn 14:16-17 Jesus said the Holy Spirit abides with us and makes His home with us. HOME. Understand, you are not a motel room for the Holy Spirit. He came and went under the old covenant; but under the new He has made a home in YOU, the believer. In fact Father, Son and Holy Spirit are ALL at home in us believers!

What if we sin? His love is greater than any sin. NOTHING can break the union between a believer and God. NOTHING. Not sin. Not addictions. Not even stupid behavior.

This UNION is a big reason we have it better than those did under the old covenant. There they wrote songs of longing for the Lord, pining in His absence. Take for example Ps 27:4a “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” Friend, that was a true longing THEN but it is reality for us, thanks to Calvary. Mt 28:20 “…I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Heb 13:4, “He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,””

Are you feeling good? Talk to Jesus, He is right there. Feeling sad? Talk to Jesus, He is right there. Feeling bad because you have just sinned? Talk to Jesus, He’s there and not going anywhere – and He purifies sin, remember?  As you remember this UNION you have with God, unbreakable, unshakable, your confidence in life will explode: you will COME ALIVE!

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My father-in-law would enjoy kidding me. He would ask, “Does the Bible say to keep the faith?” As I sought to give a serious answer, he would press on, “but I thought you were supposed to give it away.” And he would chuckle in laughter – again and again. He had been a lawyer and a judge, so words and phrases meant a great deal to him, especially if you could make fun by twisting their true meaning.

Here of course was the intentional confusing of a personal faith in Jesus with the Great Commission. Oh, did his eyes twinkle when he asked me those questions!

People may unintentionally become confused over this verse, “fight the good fight of faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.” That’s 1 Tim 6:12. If you are struggling for acceptance or mired in performance based religion or mixing Old and New Covenants, it will be easy to get confused, worn out, frustrated, and depressed.

Here Paul is encouraging a young evangelist with a personal letter. He understands life can be a struggle, so he encourages Timothy by reminding him that he HAS made the good confession of Jesus Christ, so hold fast to his new identity in Christ as a son of God, adopted by God the Father. This is a reminder to firmly enter the REST of GOD.  Every believer can do that, by believing in God and all He has promised.

The fight is from a place of REST in Jesus’ finished work. The fight is to remain focused upon Jesus, to retain our identity in Him. At Calvary Jesus took care of the sin issue, took care of those accusations against us. We are forever accepted in the beloved, in Jesus. God is pleased with us, my friend!

Ah, but you say your faith is a little shaky? Well, where does faith come from? “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word concerning Christ.” That’s Ro 10:17. So LISTEN, pay attention, to true words about JESUS CHRIST and what He has done. FAITH WILL COME freely, because it is a GIFT OF GOD, Eph 2:8.

Yes, it’s all right to READ those words. Paul meant we should pay close attention to them. Like in the Gospels when Jesus would say, “Truly truly I say to you…!

Today, how about we fight that good fight of faith, resting, not struggling to perform, but resting in His finished work, all right? Let’s receive those promises of God – and COME ALIVE!

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Today we find Jesus in Jerusalem where the Pharisees have been picking fights with Him, and losing. As usual. We find in John 9:1-3 where it says, “As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

His disciples, you see, were only repeating the common thinking of the day, and certainly reenforced by the Pharisees: that suffering comes as a result of sin. It could be your sin, those of your parents or ancestors, or God punishing you in advance for some horrible sin you have yet to commit. Welcome to religion my friends!

Religion sees someone in need, someone suffering, and stigmatizes them, rejects them, makes up all sorts of excuses for isolating them. Religion elevates those whose lives appear prosperous and free of troubles, declaring THEY must be living RIGHT, right? And God has no choice but to bless them, RIGHT?

How WRONG the world thinks, my friend! In this passage Jesus says it is NOT about sin at all. Suffering and sin at the GOD level are not related. God doesn’t make sinners suffer. They are very good at doing that to themselves, and to others, without His help.

The penalty for sin is… death, not suffering. Ro 6:23. “in the day that you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will surely die.” Gen 2:17. “The person who sins will die.” Eze 18:20. Understand?

So – what IS Jesus saying? In the Message bible it reads, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do.” 

Here is suffering – and Jesus says “We must work the works of Him who sent Me….” The works of God, the will of God then, IS TO RELIEVE SUFFERING IN THIS WORLD, NOT CAUSE IT!

Jesus gave sight to this man born blind. A huge miracle. God desires to relieve suffering! He is certainly glorified in bringing relief to the suffering, not adding to their woes! And this blind man became a worshipper of Jesus. He ‘saw the Light’ both physically and spiritually!

Note Jesus said, “WE must work the works of God.” You, and me, and JESUS! Do you see someone suffering? Well, it’s not from God! Get clear thinking about this! Call on Jesus! Pray! Lay on those anointed hands of yours, for it’s His will that they be restored — and Come Alive!

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Hebrews 3:1 reads, “you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession.”  Consider Jesus! He’s the one who brings life to the dead; who causes us to come alive!

He is the awesome Apostle, the messenger of this Good News of the New Covenant. He is our high priest, the one who enters God’s Presence for us. He enters with our confession: this Good News that is the Gospel. He is the One who has made the perfect sacrifice and has sat down – making perfect purification of our sins.

Atonement for our sins has fully, totally, perfectly, completely, been accomplished, for all eternity, friends! That’s why Jesus could sit down! Therefore, HOLD FAST your confidence in Jesus Christ – it’s OK to boast in the Lord and to keep on boasting; no matter what the world may say.

Israel in their wanderings, Heb 3 & 4 tells us, carcassed in the desert (that’s Heb 3:17). They rebelled, they refused to believe in God’s provision and insisted upon their own way. And carcassed. Well, don’t you carcass, my friend. Hold onto Jesus. Find rest in Him. Rest from your own efforts at improving yourself, of trying to be a better person, of trying harder, of climbing up to God. Efforts at self-improvement are not the answer. Believe, and find rest in His salvation.

More on Jesus, our Great High Priest! High Priests mediate, and Jesus is mediator of a better covenant, founded upon better promises! Check out Heb 8! The Old Covenant, instituted through Moses on Mt Sinai, had tons of requirements for us to fulfill. The New Covenant, instituted through the blood of Jesus, has one condition for us: believe upon Jesus and keep on believing. Even then, if we are faithless, 2 Tim 2:13 tells us He remains faithful, for that is who He is.

Some might say, “But it’s up to you, to prove to God that you believe through good works and sacrifice, Bible reading, prayer, and such” No, God sent His son to save us. Believe it. Enter His rest. You don’t have to ‘prove’ anything to anyone.

Jesus does tell us to love one another, and we can love one another, for that is the nature of God within us. Yes, love is of God, and those who love are born of God and know God. 1 Jn 4:7.

As one who has been born of God, 1 Jn 5:4, you are an overcomer in THIS world; rejoice, knowing you are someone who has Come Alive!

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Dear friend, where’s God in YOUR life? Is He close to you? Do you feel close to Him? Or does it feel that God is aloof, distant, and somewhat displeased with you?

Well, feelings can be very deceptive. But God’s Word is the truth—and it is eternal. How about I remind you about JESUS, OK?

I like the way Hebrews begins, “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son.…” WHOA! Prophets could speak for God, but Jesus is different. Jesus is God’s final and definitive revelation (surpassing anything in the OT), for he is the Son of God. Heb goes on to say, “…And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.”

Can you see His glory revealed in the Gospels as He forgives sins, heals the sick, raises the dead, delivers those oppressed by devils? This is God’s nature folks, being revealed! He is on OUR SIDE! Then Jesus went on to Calvary to make purification for our sins. Then sat down because the task was done for all ETERNITY!

Do you believe in Jesus? You have called upon Him to save you? Then your sins have been purified, eternally! You have done the one thing necessary to please God: believe upon His Son! You – have been accepted in the beloved! You – have been adopted into the family of God! You – have been made an heir of God with an awesome inheritance!

No wonder Hebrews 2 warns us not to neglect, not to forget- such a Great Salvation! And no wonder chapter 3 begins with the reminder: Consider Jesus! God is not far away from us—He is right there: IN us! He has made a home: IN US. He is not displeased with His children, my friend.

Are you downcast, dejected, disappointed? Have you been struggling to have hope? Hey, it is time to take your eyes off of yourself and consider Jesus. “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” as the old song says – and you will Come Alive!

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Dear friend, I want you to understand that Jesus loves us, and wants us to receive His love, which will enable us to keep His commandment – found in Jn 15:12, that we love one another as He has loved us.

Consider this illustration, found in The Gospel in 20 Questions by Paul Ellis. Suppose it’s your wedding day, and right after the ceremony the minister gives you a book “The Marriage Rule Book” and says, “Read this, for inside is the secret to a happy marriage.”

Well, you want a happy marriage. You open the book and inside you discover all sorts of rules for a happy marriage. Be honest. Be kind. Always tell the truth. Keep your promises. Listen well. Be on time. Say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Freely forgive. Don’t covet your neighbor’s wife. It sounds like GOLD! It’s got all the answers to a happy marriage.

You determine to do them all. But there are more rules. Rules for special days, for church activity, for celebrations, for seasons; what to wear, rules on property rights, on intimacy, on family planning, and hundreds more! “Wow!” you may think, “I had no idea marriage was going to be so hard; I’m not sure I can do all this.”

You skip hundreds more rules and come to the last page of the book. There you find these words, “If you love your spouse, disregard this book: YOU DON’T NEED IT. You will keep all the rules effortlessly.”

But there are so many Christians who will NOT do this. They keep looking to the book ‘just in case.’ They get weary. They get condemned. Their legalism kills their marriage. There is no ‘just in case.’ There is NO situation where rules can replace TRUE LOVE!

So friend, DO NOT treat the Bible like a book of rules for how to be married to Jesus. DO NOT be fooled into thinking you will have a happy marriage to Jesus if you DO everything the Bible says. It is NOT a rule book; it is NOT an instruction book to followed. (Excepting of course those rules GOD gave to man in order to lead us to Christ – the rules’ true purpose being to show us we cannot keep the rules and need a Savior! Galatians points out once we have the Savior there is no longer the need for that which brought us to Him)

TRUE LOVE does not work that way. If you love Jesus, you do not need a rule book. If you don’t love Jesus, a rule book is not going to help, because love comes from the heart, not out of a book.

L O V E— and you will Come Alive!

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The “Princess Bride” is a classic motion picture about TRUE LOVE. There is nothing a person will not do when motivated by TRUE LOVE. The Father gave up His Son Jesus because of True Love. Jesus gave up His life for True Love. Love is key, love is crucial, to having a genuine, full, rich, satisfying life.

Yet so many Christians think just like the world thinks; their minds are in need or renewal. They think, “If I just obey, I’ll be rewarded—with love, riches, blessings, everything. With that mindset they read Jn 14:15 backwards. They read, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” They think Jesus is declaring that the proof of your love for Him is keeping His commandments. And they likely go on to include the 10 Commandments and a whole bunch more. It becomes a mess of criticism, condemnation, and judgment. But it is NOT what Jesus is saying!

But what about Jn 14:23, you might say? “If anyone loves me He will keep My word.” It might sound like obedience is the proof of your love for Jesus. But obedience was NEVER the key to entrance into the Kingdom of God; FAITH IS. Believing in Jesus is the KEY. Always and forever: FAITH.

Jesus gives us only 1 commandment, did you know that? Jn 15:12, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.” It is repeated in verse 17 in case we missed it: “This I command you, that you love one another.”

Life is summed up in loving one another, for love is from God; God IS love. And we can only love because He first loved us. 1 Jn 4:19. He love us. We receive His love. We become vessels of His love—to share with the world.

Looking at Jn 14:15, NOW we can see what Jesus is saying, “If you love Him, His love will flow into you. And through you. And His love will result in you loving others, even experiencing Jesus loving others through you. You’ll be keeping His commandment effortlessly if you love Him, because His commandment is LOVE.

L O V E — and you will Come Alive!

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