Walking in the Spirit

The Bible has a lot to say about the human tongue, and most of it is not very flattering. James called the tongue an unruly evil and said no man can tame it. We're going to look at the human tongue a little while we discover what speaking in tongues is and what it's for.  What is speaking in tongues? As discussed in a previous post , speaking in tongues is the initial evidence that someone has received the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in John 3:1-8 that we must be born again of water and Spirit and in verse 8 that everyone born of the Spirit would hear the language of the Spirit. Mark 16:15-18 Jesus said that believers (those who have fully trusted in Jesus's words) will speak in tongues. The salvation accounts in Acts 2, 10-11, and 19 show speaking in tongues as the initial evidence that someone has received the Spirit. There is no other initial evidence given in any of the salvation accounts and since Jesus already said that EVERYONE born of the Spirit would hear the language ...

  To recap: So far I've given my testimony, went in depth about what it means to have faith or believe, explored how salvation is by grace through faith and not by works, looked at baptism in detail, and looked at Jesus's command for salvation. Today I want to talk about something that trips up a lot of people when they are searching for the truth. Let's take a look at the infamous thief on the cross in each of the four Gospels. Matthew 27:38 Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left. 39 And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, 40 And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. 41 Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, 42 He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. 43 He trusted in Go...

During my  last entry  I looked at the specific requirement Jesus stated for salvation: *Repentance - not just asking forgiveness but a turning from your way of thinking to God's.  *Baptism - by definition full immersion.  *Receiving the Holy Spirit - which comes with the evidence of tongues.  Today let's look a little closer at baptism. What is the symbolism? Who can be baptized? When should you be baptized? Who should be baptizing you? Why? First, why should we be baptized? Simply put, we should be baptized because Jesus said it's a requirement for salvation. Anyone who thinks Jesus can be Lord of their life without them having to be obedient doesn't actually want Jesus as Lord of their life. All the salvation scriptures (John 3:1-8, Mark 16:15-20, Acts 2:38-41 and the salvation accounts in Acts 8, 10-11, and 19) all show baptism. But beyond the fact that Jesus commanded it, why do we have to be baptized? What does it mean for us. I indeed baptize you with wat...

During my last blog, I took a look at what the letter to the Ephesian church says about the work of the Spirit in a believer. Before that, we looked at what "faith" or "belief" means in the Bible. I think this is a good time to look at Jesus' command for salvation and what it is that, according to the Bible, makes a person a believer. One of the first Bible verses that a lot of people learn is John 3:16, so let's start there. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God loved the world so much that He gave His own son so that, whoever is fully entrusted, persuaded, and committed to him can have salvation. Can we be fully entrusted, persuaded, and committed without obedience? No! If we fully believe Jesus we will act on it by being obedient to His message. We will look at the context of John 3:16 in just a moment. Another one people learn pretty fast in chu...

  Last time we looked at what grace and faith are and the role they have in our salvation. Now I want to get into stuff that's going to challenge your faith a bit. In Proverbs it says it's the honor of kings to search out a matter, so take these and go dive even deeper on your own. You should never believe something just because a man told you. Always always always 1. earnestly pray for God to reveal the truth and 2. see if what you're told lines up with the word.  In this post, I want to look at the work of the Spirit in our salvation, specifically as outlined in the book of Ephesians. Even if you're not 100% sure what the Holy Spirit is, you've probably been told in church before or read in your Bible about it. My hope today is that on some level you will begin to see your need for the Spirit. I'll do a separate "How to receive the Spirit" blog but if you have any questions feel free to drop a comment below. There are so many things to talk about whe...

Ephesians 2: 8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  9  Not of works, lest any man should boast. Almost everyone who claims to be Christian knows this verse well. You're told to ask Jesus into your heart,  make him your Lord and Savior, or dedicate your life to the Lord. And often times you're told that happens when you say a prayer...the infamous sinner's prayer. And, after you've said that prayer you might feel good or you might feel nothing. You might even shed a few heart-felt tears. And then, you go about your life just believing, blindly, that it worked because a preacher or your parent or a friend told you to just believe. Then they quote you this verse. I was quoted this verse many times. I was told, so many times in sermons growing up that by grace, through faith, I've been saved. It would take me 20 years to see this verse in context before I actually understood it though. By grace: What is grace? Acc...

Three times the New Testament says that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. This is one of the arguments people use against baptism being a requirement for salvation. I'd like to look at it a little further and explore what righteousness and belief are in Bible terms and what these verses mean in context. Righteousness:  The Strong's concordance defines as righteousness as justification or holiness, or innocence. Easy enough to grasp I guess. We've all sinned and God said "be holy as I am holy", so we need a way to get to the holiness. When we get to that place where we are holy, sanctified, consecrated, set apart for divine purpose, that's righteousness. Belief: Belief is the part that trips a lot of people up. Is believing in Jesus just thinking that He's real and thinking He died for us? The context of the Bible and Greek meaning seems to say it's a bit more than that, a lot less surface-level. In the Greek, the words f...

I grew up in church from a fairly young age, though attendance was sporadic depending on which parent had me that weekend. At the age of 10, I was presented with the idea that we are all sinners needing salvation. By this point, I had already suffered enough physical, sexual, and emotional abuse that I felt a lot of shame and unworthiness. I felt like I was only lovable when I was doing what everyone else wanted, so when I heard that I could ask forgiveness for my sins and ask Jesus into my heart I really latched onto the concept. I thought, “at least I can do what Jesus wants and be loved by Him and what I’ve done won’t matter anymore.” So I asked Jesus into my heart at the age of 10, and because I was in the Baptist church at the time I got baptized. I went to many different denominations of churches from that time and I actually enjoyed all of them because, while I was there, I felt like I was doing the right thing. The problem was that I never felt better. It was a cons...