Thoughts on Christ and His Word

What makes the parable of the lost son so beautiful is that we all understand that this is a story of the Father who has unconditional love and grace in his heart towards his son. And a son who after being beaten up by life, willingly and repentantly returns to the Father to receive his gracious gift of forgiveness.  The Father is constantly looking and longing for people to return to their loving Creator and Savior.  For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men 1 Timothy 2:5-6

God is the one who opens doors for the gospel. Open doors are opportunities where God opens the heart of people to receive the Gospel. We must pray and open our eyes for these open doors. In Acts chapter 10 God revealed to Peter that there was an open door in Caserea through the vision of the sheets and then by telling him to go with the three men that we're looking for him.  When Peter arrives at Caserea he finds a house full of people ready to receive the gospel. In chapter 11 the Jews who had been persecuted and scattered throughout Phonecia, Cypress and Antioch went preaching the gospel. At Antioch the brothers were bold enough and visionary enough to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Many Gentiles came to Christ which revealed an open door. The Jerusalem Church sent Barnabas who saw this great open door of Grace and then he went and got Saul from Tarsus and both of them kept preaching and picking fruit at Antioch. In the first open door Peter found it by a heavy dose of s

David wrote "When I consider your Heavens the work of your fingers the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" Psalms 8:3-4 Why does God think about people? Why does he care for people? In my view there can only be two answers: 1) Because God is love 1st John 4:16. God can do nothing else but love. God loves all of his creation but he has a special love for people because people are made in His image. Thus the second reason that God loves us is because he created us to look like him, to be like him. So we are his very special Creations, the jewel of all creation. When a sinful woman sleeps with a man whom she barely knows but in a heat of passion and Lust for Pleasure goes to bed with him and a child is conceived, at first she may not appreciate the fact that she is pregnant. But when that child comes out she loves him even if it was conceived through a man that she barely knew and throu

When Peter preached repentance for the Forgiveness of sins in Acts 2:38, the repentance referred not to general sin but to the fact that they had crucified Jesus Christ who was both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). By repenting (Gk. "change of mind") they would stop rejecting Christ and in fact turn to Him in faith and thus "receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" Acts 2:38. Acts 3:19 says "repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out." Again what were they to repent of, general sin such as fornication or drunkenness? No, they were to repent of having killed the "author of life", the holy and righteous one. They were to change their mind about who Christ was and rather than rejecting him they were to turn to God in faith believing that Jesus is the Son of God whom the Father sent to die and pay for the sins of the world and that he rose again on the third day. So repentance is a turning but not necessarily a turning from smoking and dr

In John 15:2 Jesus said "He cuts off every branch that in me bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." We all know that pruning includes trials, troubles, and tribulations. And the purpose of these trials is to create the character of Christ in us which equals love. Every hardship and trial is God moving us more in the direction of love - loving Him and loving others more. When Joseph's brothers sold him as a slave God was moving Joseph toward more love for himself and for his brothers. He needed to learn to love his brothers and therefore increase in having the character of God. And he needed to learn to love and have faith in God even when he couldn't understand what God was doing. So God's ultimate purpose in pruning us is that we would have more love for him and for others and therefore be able to produce more fruit.

John 15:1-2a says "I am the True Vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit..." Those who bear no fruit are unbelievers. They are branches by virtue of Christ being their creator, but their lack of fruit shows that Christ is not their God and Saviour. These are like the soil #2 and #3 in the parable of the sower. While they believe somewhat, it's not true Faith because they never bear fruit. Only the fourth soil bears fruit in various degrees. So people who genuinely put their faith in Christ will bear some fruit. It is difficult to believe that a person can genuinely put their faith in Christ that the Holy Spirit comes in and yet nothing changes. These are those that bear no fruit and are cut off from their creator.