What is Easter Truly All About

What is "Easter" truly all about

1. Genesis 1 teaches that God created the universe and created man in His own image. How was man formed?

Genesis 1:27 - So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them

Genesis 2:7 - Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being.

2. God gave man an abundant life, but by free will, man chose to disobey God and to go his own way. This sin separated man from a Holy God and because God is holy, He will need to punish the wicked to execute justice. How does God show His holiness?

Isaiah 5:16 - But the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice, and God, the Holy One, shows Himself holy in righteousness and through righteous judgments.

3. How is the Lord known?

Psalm 9:16 - The Lord has made Himself known; He executes judgment; the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands.

4. Who has sinned?

Romans 3:23 - Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory ^[b]which God bestows and receives.

5. What is the result of sin?

Romans 5:12 - Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man, and death as the result of sin, so death spread to all men, [no one being able to stop it or to escape its power] because all men sinned.

6. God loved the world He created and planned a way by which the world could be saved, escaping judgment and eternal damnation. He sent His Son, born of the Holy Spirit, to bring everlasting life to those who would believe on Him. Whom does God call to repentance?

Matthew 9:13 - Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy [that is, readiness to help those in trouble] and not sacrifice and sacrificial victims. For I came not to call and invite [to repentance] the righteous (those who are upright and in right standing with God), but sinners (the erring ones and all those not free from sin).

7. What is gained by believing in Jesus?

John 3:16 - For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

8. For what reason did God send His Son?

John 3: 17 & 18 - 17For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him. 18He who believes in Him [who clings to, trusts in, relies on Him] is not judged [he who trusts in Him never comes up for judgment; for him there is no rejection, no condemnation--he incurs no damnation]; but he who does not believe (cleave to, rely on, trust in Him) is judged already [he has already been convicted and has already received his sentence] because he has not believed in and trusted in the name of the only begotten Son of God. [He is condemned for refusing to let his trust rest in Christ's name.]

9. What benefit comes from hearing and believing God's Word?

John 5:24 & 25 - 24I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, the person whose ears are open to My words [who listens to My message] and believes and trusts in and clings to and relies on Him Who sent Me has (possesses now) eternal life. And he does not come into judgment [does not incur sentence of judgment, will not come under condemnation], but he has already passed over out of death into life.

25Believe Me when I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, the time is coming and is here now when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear it shall live.

10. For what reason does Jesus say He came?

John 10:10 - The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).

11. How do we stand before God by believing in Jesus?

Acts 13:38 & 39 - 38So let it be clearly known and understood by you, brethren, that through this Man forgiveness and removal of sins is now proclaimed to you; 39And that through Him everyone who believes [who acknowledges Jesus as his Savior and devotes himself to Him] is absolved (cleared and freed) from every charge from which he could not be justified and freed by the Law of Moses and given right standing with God.

12. Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried, but God raised Him from the dead. He paid the penalty for our sin by taking our iniquities upon Himself and dying in our place. His death and resurrection bridged the gap from God to man. Who is Jesus considered as?

1 Timothy 2:5 - For there [is only] one God, and [only] one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.

13. Why did God give His Son to die for us?

Romans 5:8 - But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us.

14. What is the only way to be reconciled (brought back) to God?

John 14:6 - Jesus said to him, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me.

We must receive Jesus' work on the cross and invite Him to be our Savior. We then become a new creation, a child of God, and we enter into the Kingdom of God. We exchange sin, separation, frustration, guilt, and lack of purpose for forgiveness, peace, abundant life and eternal life.

1. How do we invite Jesus to be our Savior?

Revelation 3:20 - Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears and listens to and heeds My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will eat with him, and he [will eat] with Me.

2. Who do we become when we receive Him?

John 1:12 - But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name

3. How are we saved?

Romans 10:9 - Because if you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe (adhere to, trust in, and rely on the truth) that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

4. How have we been redeemed from a life of futility?

1 Peter 1:18 & 19 - 18You must know (recognize) that you were redeemed (ransomed) from the useless (fruitless) way of living inherited by tradition from [your] forefathers, not with corruptible things [such as] silver and gold, 19But [you were purchased] with the precious blood of Christ (the Messiah), like that of a [sacrificial] lamb without blemish or spot.

5. How do we gain life?

1 John 5:11-13 - 11And this is that testimony (that evidence): God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

12He who possesses the Son has that life; he who does not possess the Son of God does not have that life.

13I write this to you who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) the name of the Son of God [in ^[c]the peculiar services and blessings conferred by Him on men], so that you may know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that you [already] have life, ^[d]yes, eternal life.

6. What is necessary in order to see the Kingdom of God?

7. What did Jesus say He came to do?

Luke 4:18-19 - 18The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity], 19To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord [the day ^[l]when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound

Ronald & Sheila Powell

Scriptures for April Devotion and Prayer

1 John 2:5
But if anyone obeys his word, then a pure love for God is truly made complete in him by his loving God-like attributes!

Prayer:

Amen Lord! Help me to obey your words and fill my heart with the pure love of God. In Jesus Name.


Psalm 70:4
But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, "Let God alone be exalted!"

Prayer:

Amen! Lord I thank you and praise You for this wonderful promise that all who seek you shall receive joy. You Name be exalted forever. In Jesus Name.


John 14:1
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God .”

Chronicles 19:7
Now let the fear of the LORD be upon you. Judge carefully,
For with the LORD our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery.

Prayer:

Amen Lord. Truly you are a Just and Righteous God. Help me to reverent You and trust in the Lord wholeheartedly. In Jesus Name.


Romans 3:4
Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written: "So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail "

Prayer:

Amen and Amen Lord! Your words are 'Yea and Amen'!

Knowing The Holy Spirit Part 6

Knowing The Holy Spirit Part 6

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit

I From resurrection of Jesus onward, all activity of God was always and only through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 6:4

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Romans 8:10-11

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Acts 1:2

Until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen.

If Jesus needed the Holy Spirit’s help to do His work, then we need all the help we can get from the Holy Spirit as well! We can operate in the same miracles as Jesus by the present day activity of the present ministry of the Holy Spirit. We need to be equally dependent upon the Holy Spirit for Christian living.

Romans 8:14-15

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”

Be ware of not to follow the church of Galatia that go back to our own soulish ways. In Him we live and breathe and have our very being!

Galatians 3:1

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

II At the end of the age the person of the Holy Spirit works with the bride creating a great hunger for more of God. Together we cry out, Come, Lord Jesus!

Revelations 22:17

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let the one who hears say, "Come." And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.

Not only is the present day work of the Holy Spirit, but also the ongoing and future work of God among His people is by the Holy Spirit!

So will it be at the end of the age! The activity and work of the gifts of the Holy Spirit will be so profuse that there will hardly be a controversy or dilemma in the body of Christ concerning His operations. There will be so much need for Him and so much undeniable work through Him that we will truly celebrate the Holy Spirit is alive and well on planet earth!

Note taken from the Article “To Know The Person of Holy Spirit”

by James W. Goll

Knowing The Holy Spirit Part 5

Knowing The Holy Spirit Part 5

The Holy Spirit is the Now

Presence Representative of the Godhead.

In this age, the Holy Spirit is the resident, personal representative of the Godhead on earth. He takes up His residence among us, around us and in us! The Holy Spirit is our ever present Emmanuel – God with us!
In fact He wants to overtake each one of us, overwhelm us, saturate, marinate, pickle and fill us with His divine presence. We cannot get too much of the Holy Spirit! He wants to fill each of us.

The scriptures depict His dwelling place in two ways:

A. I Corinthians 3:16-17 refers to the collective temple – the Church – the body of Christ.
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple? God's Spirit lives in you. If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. God's temple is holy. And you are that temple.

B. I Corinthians 6:19-20 then refers to the individual temple – the physical body of each believer.
Don't you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit is in you. You have received him from God. You do not belong to yourselves. Christ has paid the price for you. So use your bodies in a way that honors God.

Jesus is Lord over the church; the Holy Spirit is Lord in the church.

The Main Purposes of the Holy Spirit

What is the main purpose of the Holy Spirit?
What has He come to do?

John 14:18 refers to the coming of Jesus, at Pentecost, in the Person of the Holy Spirit.
"I will not leave you like children who don't have parents. I will come to you.”

John 14:3 refers to the Second Coming of Jesus, in His own Person, at the close of the age.
If I go and do that, I will come back. And I will take you to be with me. Then you will also be where I am.

Three main purposes for which the Holy Spirit came:

A. To complete the ministry of Christ
John 14:25 I have spoken all these things while I am still with you.

John 16:12-13 "I have much more to say to you. It is more than you can handle right now. But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears. And he will tell you what is still going to happen.

B. To form the corporate body of Christ

C. To prepare the bride of Christ

Knowing The Holy Spirit Part 4

Knowing The Holy Spirit Part 4

Jesus emphasized the following truths concerning our relationship with the Holy Spirit:

A. The Holy Spirit is the Promise of the Father

Luke 24:45-49
Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
Acts 1:4
And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me."
Wow! When you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit you are honoring the Father!

B. There was to be an exchange of Persons. First, Jesus was to leave; then, the Holy Spirit would come in His place.

John 14:15-18
If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.


Lord Jesus, thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. I pray that all Christians be baptized with His amazing presence and power! Amen!

Knowing The Holy Spirit Part 3

Knowing The Holy Spirit (Part 3)

The Five Great Redemptive Acts of God.

A. The Incarnation of Jesus
God the Father by the agency of the Holy Spirit incarnated Jesus the Son in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
(Luke 1:35; Matthew 1:20)

But as Joseph was thinking about this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. The angel said, "Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary home as your wife. The baby inside her is from the Holy Spirit.

B. The Earthly Ministry of Jesus
God the Father anointed Jesus the Son with the power of the Holy Spirit. The result: healing and deliverance for humanity.

Acts 10:38: You know how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Jesus went around doing good. He healed all who were under the devil's power. God was with him.

C. The Atonement of Jesus
Jesus the Son offered himself to God the Father through the Holy Spirit.

Hebrews 9:14: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

D. The Resurrection of Jesus
God the Father raised up Jesus the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 1:4: ...who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness...

Romans 6:4: Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of God the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

E. The Gift of the Holy Spirit
At Pentecost Jesus the Son received from God the Father the gifts of the Holy Spirit and poured them out upon His disciples

(Acts 2:32-33) God has raised this same Jesus back to life. We are all witnesses of this. Jesus has been given a place of honor at the right hand of God. He has received the Holy Spirit from the Father. This is what God had promised. It is Jesus who has poured out what you now see and hear.

Likewise, the ongoing relationship of God to his people in this age directly involves all three personas of the Godhead. The end purpose of God is that we come to Him as Father; but we have access to God the Father only through Jesus the Son by the Holy Spirit.

(Ephesians 2:18-19) Through Christ we both come to the Father by the power of one Holy Spirit.

So you are no longer strangers and outsiders. You are citizens together with God's people. You are members of God's family.

Similarly, God the Father indwells His people only in Jesus the Son through the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 2:22: In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Prayer:
Amen n Amen. Praise be to God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit for the redemptive works! May God himself, the God of peace sanctify us thru n thru. May our whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls us is faithful and He will do it. In Jesus Name We give thanks. Amen.

Knowing The Holy Spirit Part 2

Knowing The Holy Spirit (Part 2)

8 scriptures depicting the deity of the Holy Spirit.

1. He is specifically called God (Acts 5:4; 2 Corinthians 3:16, 17)

2 cor3:17 Now the Lord is the Holy Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, freedom is also there.

Acts5:3&4 Then Peter said, "Ananias, why did you let Satan fill your heart? He made you lie to the Holy Spirit. You have kept some of the money you received for the land. Didn't the land belong to you before it was sold? After it was sold, you could have used the money as you wished. What made you think of doing such a thing? You haven't lied to just anyone. You've lied to God."

2. He is eternal. (Hebrew 9:14)

But Christ offered himself to God without any flaw. He did this through the power of the eternal Holy Spirit.

3. He is omnipresent. (Psalms 139:7)

How can I get away from your Spirit? Where can I go to escape from you?

4. He is the Spirit of Life. (Romans 8:2)

I am now controlled by the law of the Holy Spirit. That law gives me life because of what Christ Jesus has done. It has set me free from the law of sin that brings death.

5. He is the Spirit of Truth. (John 16:13)

But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears. And he will tell you what is still going to happen.

6. The Spirit participated in creation. (Genesis 1:2)

The earth didn't have any shape. And it was empty. Darkness was over the surface of the ocean. At that time, the ocean covered the earth. The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

7. He participates in regeneration. (John 3:8)

"The wind blows where it wants to. You hear the sound it makes. But you can't tell where it comes from or where it is going. It is the same with everyone who is born through the Spirit."

8. Jesus was raised from the dead by the Spirit. (Romans 8:11)

The Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you. So the God who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your bodies, which are going to die. He will do this by the power of his Spirit, who lives in you.

Let us reverence and enjoy Him just as we do to God the Father and Jesus our Lord!