You Must Be Born Again

Are you rejecting the council of God against yourself? Being born again is a birth that comes only once from God and it is God who gives it. God is the one who grants it, God is the one who permits it, God is the one who authorizes it. He gives us the right to take the action which is the meaning of “Gave right to” (John 1:12).

"Born Again Pt. 3" - "It Is Written" #296-14 from Glendale Church on Vimeo.

Further reading here

Every Second, Every Minute, Every Day is Jesus Birth

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Have You Seen Gods Glory?

What is blocking your view?

One of the best-known verses in the Bible is Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The Bible clearly tells us that there is a great separation between man and God. Since the Fall in Genesis 3, man has suffered both physical and spiritual death under God’s judgment.

We are now separated from God’s glory to the degree that no man can even see the full glory of God and live (Exodus 33:20). In the presence of a holy God, impurity is consumed (Hebrews 12:29).

Yet God the Father, in the wonder of His mercy and grace, has allowed us to see His glory by gazing directly upon the Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus, who is fully God and fully man, displayed all the wonder of God in human form. While this is not easy to comprehend, we can all thank God for this truth. Through His incarnation Christ became the once-for-all sacrifice to atone for man’s sin and reconcile us to God.

The Bible tells us that as we know the Son, we know the Father. Consider three amazing passages about the Son.

Paul explains in Colossians 1:15–16, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”

Later Paul writes, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). In response to His disciple Philip’s request, “Show us the Father,” Jesus replied, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8–9).

If we want to see God’s glory, we must view it through Jesus Christ. If we want to see the Father’s glory, we must see it through the Son. In Jesus we see all of God’s grace, holiness, wisdom, creative power, love, justice, and mercy. While we do not see physical glory in His fleshly human body, which was as breakable as ours, we do see all the glory of God’s character reflected in the person and works of Christ.

When you look through a telescope, you look through two lenses. The objective lens at the big end of the telescope captures light from vast and distant objects and brings it into focus. Then the small eyepiece at your end of the telescope converts the image into a form your eyes can comprehend. God’s glory is like this. Christ brings into focus the brightness of the Father’s full glory, and now His Word, the Bible, is our eyepiece through which we see Christ.

This makes the Bible immensely important. If our vision of God’s glory relies on our ability to see Christ through His Word, any scratch, crack, or obstruction on this eyepiece will distort our view of God’s glory. In less abstract terms, any doubts cast upon the authority of Scripture, its infallibility, or its inerrancy in any part, invariably places doubt on the glory of both the Son, who is the focus of Scripture, and the Father.

Which words of Scripture are important in showing us the Son? John 1 tells us that Jesus is the Word, that He has been since the beginning, and that the Word created everything. So from the very first verses in Genesis, we are reading about the Son.

All Scripture originated from and points to God’s Son. So we must be very careful to ensure that we embrace all Scripture as our starting point in every area of our thinking, and keep every inch of this vital eyepiece clean and free of scratches.

When we start with God’s Word, we are able to look through the telescope and view all aspects of the world correctly, according to God’s glory. For example, when we look through the lens of Scripture at the amazing designs in nature, we see the Son’s amazing glory in creation.

HUMAN PHILOSOPHIES HAVE OBSCURED THE CLEAR VIEW OF GOD’S GLORY THAT THE WHOLE WORLD NEEDS TO SEE.

When we examine the curse of sin through the lens of Scripture and the illumination of the Son, we see the Father’s glory in judgment. Only by looking through the first lens (the Bible) can we see the truth of Christ, and only by looking through the second lens (Christ) can we see the Father’s glory. On the other hand, if we try to see God’s glory without looking through both the eyepiece and the objective lens, we will fail.

The church’s attempts to reinterpret Scripture based on modern human philosophies, such as evolution over millions of years, have clouded the eyepiece, causing many to doubt the Bible’s message about Jesus. This compromise has obscured the world’s view of God’s glory. This is a tragedy because the biblical view of Jesus Christ has eternal, life-and-death consequences.

In these last days it is as important as ever for Christians to be well-grounded in biblical thinking. The church needs lens cleaners because lost and needy sinners desperately need to hear the pure, unobstructed gospel of Jesus Christ.

Do You Want To Be Lost? You'll Have To Work At It.

Acts 16:25-34

The Philippian jailer conversion.

“It takes a huge effort to avoid being saved.” The following are 3 ways non-Christians work so they can hold their place and not do what the Philippian jailer did to be baptized into Jesus Christ.

1. You will need to throw away your watch. Don’t think about time and how your life is ticking away from getting closer to God. Nobody knows how many ticks one gets. Luke 12:13-21. Most people think our last day comes too fast. If we want to be lost keep looking at your time and wait. The more one waits the closer we come to what? The end! Be urgent to obey God immediately. Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey Genesis 22:3. When we know the right thing to do, when do we do it? Immediately. The longer you delay you may talk yourself out of it. When you become a Christian you recognize Jesus Christ as the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. He is sovereign in your life. No one receives an order from the King, looks at it and says, I’m not going to do that. If I want to be lost I can’t be taking all this effort thinking like this.
2. If you’re going to work at being lost you need to become a church Inspector. What is the number one excuse that insulates people from the call of the gospel? The church is full of hypocrites. Non Christian’s love this and feel so good to say it – the church is full of hypocrites. It gives them a get out of hell free card. I don’t need to become a Christian or go to church because it’s full of hypocrites. News Flash – Hypocrites are everywhere in life. Doctors, Bankers, Lawyers, everyday normal people, there are hypocrites in every walk of life – but when we go to church… Ah ha, that’s totally and completely different. Suddenly when there are hypocrites claiming to be part of the body of Christ, that means we can’t have any part of it. Look at Luke 12:56. Jesus regularly roasted hypocrites. If your lost and want to stay lost, you have to ignore the inconsistencies of hypocrisy that keeps you from doing business, or going places, or enjoying a sporting event. You will have to act like one bad apple ruins the whole barrel. You will have to put your pretend face on every day. And if there is one bad Christian then you can't be part of it because one bad Christian is faking it, they are all faking it. Christians, they are all hypocrites. You can do all this church inspection if you are determined to be lost!
3. You will have to do some pretending to be lost. You will have to pretend that the sole purpose of life is to have a good time. Nothing under the sun is really new. Remember Ananias and Saphira in Acts chapter 2? They pretended and lost their lives before the elders! Solomon believed life was all about fun until he summed up life having everything at his disposal - Ecclesiastes 2:1-11. He tried to make life good and fun, but it didn’t work. If anyone in history could have made life about having fun to the fullest, King Solomon was the man. It didn’t satisfy, in fact it made him a fool (v.15). Pleasure does have a role (V.24), but it is not the anchor of life. Solomon figured this out. If your not a Christian trying to fill your life with all kinds of fun, you will find some difficult times with that. Why? When you go to a funeral, suddenly it becomes apparent that fun is not the end of all things. But if we determine not to become a Christian, we really need to think about that. If your going to have long thoughts about the purpose of life and its meaning, you better put that out of your mind if you aren’t going to become a Christian. Continue working hard to be lost, go out and have fun.

What about this Christian thing? Getting baptized, living right, doing what the Lord wants me to do, oh you know, its too much. Can’t do all of that. Have you ever thought about how much you are doing so you can hold the Lord out of your life pushing Him at arms length?

Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me all of you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Enjoy this Podcast lesson on how to work at being lost.