Tag: Christian perfection

John 11:15 (KJV) The Intent of Christ

John 11:15 (KJV)
And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.

Jesus’ intent was that the believers might believe. The chapter is filled with believers who still needed to believe.

  • Each of His disciples had questions of faith
  • Martha certainly had questions of faith even
  • Mary, who had set at His feet, had questions of faith

They each believed but they each had holes in their belief. The intent of the Lord was to fill in those holes that these believers might believe.

The intent of the Lord is still “that ye might believe“. Sometimes the tests to bring us into believing can be very painful:

  • A death in the family
  • A difficulty in circumstances
  • A dive in economy

Those of us who call Christ Lord can find ourselves wondering:

  • Why the Lord tarries
  • Where are the answers to our prayers and
  • How will He ever deliver us from this trial

We believe in Him but we have questions. We have holes in our faith.

Jesus intends to fill those holes.

 

To my reader:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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John 11:15 (KJV) The Intent of Christ

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John 7:4 (KJV) Developing Faithful Followers

John 7:4 (KJV)
For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.

The methods and tactics of Christ are foreign and strange to those of the world. Jesus, his brethren believed, was full of self ambition yet He had the perfect opportunity to spread His name worldwide if He did His miracles in Jerusalem during the feast, when Jews from around the world were gathered there.

Jesus did not go with them but He did go. When He arrived He did not do miracles but taught the Word of God.

Men who do not believe become easily frustrated with God because He doesn’t do things as they would.

  • He doesn’t make a huge show
  • He doesn’t build crowds with impressive deeds
  • He doesn’t impress souls with pomp and splendor

Jesus uses simple, quiet consistent methods of teaching preaching and encouraging. These methods do not build the great crowds but they do develop faithful followers.

To my reader:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others

John 7:4 (KJV) Developing Faithful Followers

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.

2 Kings 8:4-5 (KJV) Worldly Indeed

2 Kings 8:4-5 (KJV)
And the king talked with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, Tell me, I pray thee, all the great things that Elisha hath done.
And it came to pass, as he was telling the king how he had restored a dead body to life, that, behold, the woman, whose son he had restored to life, cried to the king for her house and for her land. And Gehazi said, My lord, O king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life.

I note two men of worldly character, one interested to hear about Elisha and the other, excited to tell such an important man what he knows about Elisha. Neither of them is interested in either, talking about or hearing about the Lord.

There is a lesson for us here, if we will hear it. To make all our Christian conversation about great men of God, to either want to tell our own experiences or else to wish to hear about someone else experiences with them, and to have those conversations to the near exclusion of the Lord, is worldly indeed.

To my reader:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

2 Kings 8:4-5 (KJV) Worldly Indeed

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.

Luke 11:42 (KJV) Wash It All

Luke 11:42 (KJV)
But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

Jesus’ accusation against the Pharisees was that they concerned themselves only with the outward appearance and made little to no emphasis concerning the inner things. He used their complaint that His disciples didn’t wash enough as His object for the lesson. They, in effect, washed the outside of their plates so they looked clean but left the inside, where all the real filth was, alone.

Jesus doesn’t discourage washing our hands here. He tells them not to leave that undone. He does, however, urge that the inner plate is more important than the outer.

I think we see both extremes in modern Christianity.
On the one hand there are those whose only concern is appearances
They build extravagant buildings and put on the show for religion’s sake. It’s not just the big denominations that do it. We find this same action practiced all the way down to the single individual who dresses and behaves a particular way, all for appearance sake. If they have an inner spiritual concern it is barely recognizable under all their show.

On the other hand is the reactionary who, seeing the shallowness of religious appearance, has rejected all forms of outward conformity

  • They refuse to wear dress clothes to church.
  • They will not commit to regular church attendance.
  • They mock any form of separation or standards as legalism.

Jesus speaks to both crowds in this case and says, “these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”

In others words, wash both the inside and the outside of the plate.

To my reader:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

Luke 11:42 (KJV) Wash It All

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Mark 13:21-23 (KJV) Why True Believers Can’t Be Fooled

Mark 13:21-23 (KJV)
And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not:
For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.
But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.

It is not possible to deceive the elect on three counts:
First, they have been warned
The element of surprise has been robbed the devil. Jesus has warned us that Satan will try to deceive.

Secondly; they have a choice in the matter
True believers can never fall victim to the devil’s devices. They have the power of the Holy Spirit and the will to follow the Lord.

Thirdly, they are the elect
That means they belong to God. Satan may desire to sift them but he cannot overcome the prayers of Christ fort them.

To my reader:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

Mark 13:21-23 (KJV) Why True Believers Can’t Be Fooled

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Matthew 26:15 (KJV) What’s Your “Last Straw”?

Matthew 26:15 (KJV)
And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.

Many years ago now we had a couple who had been members of our church for several years. This couple was active and involved in everything going on at church. They were positive and generally encouraging toward me. Then came the day when I learned that all of this had been a façade, a front that covered what was happening in their heart. I can’t remember what the message was about that day but their response afterwards was that they had disagreed with many things and this was just the last straw.

Their story reminds me of Judas and prompts me to ask, “What will it take for you to betray Christ?” For Judas is was just a few pieces of silver.

  • For some it is a job where there is no sound church
  • For some it is a teaching that they refuse to accept
  • For some it is a relationship in the church that runs them the wrong way
  • For someone else it is a simple misunderstanding they refuse to forgive

Whatever it is, it will lead to your destruction. Some who finally come to the last straw leave to find another church. Many of them leave church completely but either way the path is one that leads to eventual devastation. It may not show up for a generation or two but it will happen.

Everyone of us must realize that we can be broken. If we attempt to follow the Lord in the strength of our own will we will find that last straw. The key to the Christian life is Christ living in us. Only He can hold up to any straw.

 

To my reader:
“Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” The answer to faithful Christian living is not determination but dependence. Are you leaning on the Lord? I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

Matthew 26:15 (KJV) What’s Your “Last Straw”?

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.

Revelation 20:7 (KJV) Time Was Immaterial

Revelation 20:7 (KJV)
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

I am reminded that one day Is with the Lord as a thousand years. Days are literal in the Bible but time is immaterial to God. It appears to me that all of human history will take place in something that looks to God like seven days.

Revelation 20 has both the binding of Satan and his release for a little season and the two events are a thousand years apart.

Further, the apostle John witnessed in the spirit all one thousand years. Time was immaterial to him too.

Time matters to us. We only have so much time so we must not waste it. But in a sense time is immaterial to us too in that, the time we have one earth passes so quickly and then eternity is upon us. Time is of such little consequence for our eternal souls that it makes no sense to occupy ourselves with it. We ought to live in light of eternity instead of temporality.

(Want to see this devotion in video form? Click here.)

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2007.

Revelation 20:7 (KJV) Time Was Immaterial

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.

Stay Free of Corruption

2 Timothy 2:20-21 KJV
But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour.
If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.

 

One must remember the simile being employed is the local church. Paul speaks of that church as a great house and reveals, as surprising as we may find it to be, that not every vessel in that house is a clean and honorable one. A toilet basin has a purpose in the house but it would not be satisfactory to use it as a salad bowl.

 

Even so, even those members in the church who are less godly than we would like have a purpose even if it is only to humble us as they revile our walk or to drive us to prayer as they hinder our advance. (As Moses often resorted to prayer when, in the wilderness, he met opposition within his own camp.)

 

That they have purpose, however, does not mean we should allow ourselves to be corrupted by them. Sometimes they are there only to prove us, whether we will be true despite them. Paul said there must be heresies among us that those who are approved or faithful might be manifest. The temptations of the heresies tend to separate those faithful from those who are only leaning on the faithful. Those who stay free from the corruption of the less honorable vessels are themselves, the honorable ones.

 

faithfulness

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2007.

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Another “Furthermore”

1 Thessalonians 4:1 KJV

Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.

 

Furthermore…

 

In the Christian life, there is always something new:

  • To learn
  • To practice
  • To grow in

 

The Christian life is never, or should never be static.

 

No Christian should ever allow himself or herself to feel like he or she has arrived; like there is nothing else to master in the faith. This life of faith is a matter of constant advancement. To stop growing is to stop living as a Christian. We never attain perfection in this world.

 

There will always be another “furthermore “.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2007.

Christian growth