Resentment Bank

To understand the meaning of repentance and redemption, it’s necessary to have an understanding of sin. Sin is to miss the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

God said to Jeremiah to tell the people that God will give Israel a heart to repent, to return to him. This is amazing grace. Israel had fallen by forsaking God and the truth of His word. As a consequence, God allowed them to be taken captive into Babylon.

How do we reconcile our hearts back to the Lord? How do we pray as David did, “Create in me a new heart O Lord”? Pride and a self serving attitude keeps our hearts from approaching God for his mercy and forgiveness.

As it says in Corinthians, thinking themselves to be wise in their own conceits, they became fools, turning their backs on the Lord. However, where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. According to Gary Leachman, there is a difference between a pardon and justification. To be pardoned means that a person is released from prison, but his guilt persists. He is still guilty as charged and his criminal record remains. However, justification means “just as if I never sinned.” Justification means that my debt has been paid in full by the payment of Jesus’ innocent blood on my behalf. Because his sacrifice justified God’s righteous judgement against me, I’ve been redeemed and released from my obligation to make right my debt of sin.

Our sin nature is born from our mother’s womb. This is the nature that we inherited from Adam as a result of Adam’s original disobedience to God and His word. All children are born in sin. As children, we’re wounded and feel the pain of the injustice of this world. Many children grow up with a resentment bank against their earthly fathers. Their own fathers never learned what it means to be a godly father. This curse from our earthly fathers is often passed down from generation to generation. These hurtful relationships make deposits into a child’s resentment bank. This is especially true of little girls. They are more easily hurt and suffer deeply from father wounds.

Hurt and woundedness is a reciprocal relationship. Our fallen nature seeks retribution. How do we seek forgiveness for our wounded hearts that lash out to hurt those who have hurt us? How do we empty our resentment bank? How do we rid ourselves of vindictiveness, and a heart that seeks retribution? Our first priority is to restore our vertical relationship with our Heavenly Father. According to 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. To take this verse to heart means that we need to forsake our pride. Humility and meekness is the requirement to approach the throne of God according to the Word of God.

According to Galatians 6:1, “BRETHREN, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” Those who have been wronged can recite the evils that others have perpetrated against them. Victims in their victim mentality convince themselves that they are righteous and others are guilty who have wronged them. Their right “not to be offended” has been violated. They say to themselves, “my anger against them is justified because they, having hurt me, are evil and I’m not.

Jesus explained in The Sermon on the Mount, I’ve come to establish a new kingdom. I’m changing the paradigm for justice. If someone sins against you and slaps you on the cheek, then turn the other cheek. If someone demands by law that you carry their pack for a mile, then volunteer to go the second mile. The first mile is of obligation. The second is of love. Love your enemies. Bless them that persecute you and despitefully use you. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and say all manner of evil against you for my sake for great is your reward in heaven.

The devil works to divide and conquer. He sets up strife, contention and division for where there is strife, there is confusion and every evil work. The devil convinces his subjects to maintain a victim mentality. A victimized heart of resentment distances a person’s heart from others and from God.

However, according to 2 Timothy 2, the Lord’s bondservant must not strive…. must not be quarrelsome. He must teach others by his life’s witness of truth in action. He must be patient when wronged, gently correcting those who oppose themselves. The benefit is if perhaps God would grant them repentance. The principle is “be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Whom the Lord loves, he reproves. Susan said to Pete, “we need to talk.” She pulled up a chair and said, “In my bible study I realized that you seem to value everyone’s opinion except mine.” Pete came to his senses that he needed to own his sin. He said, “Honey, I’m so sorry I’ve done that. Thank you for gently correcting me.”

Our prescription as individuals and as nations is to return to God with a heart of repentance. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

The devil holds people captive in his snare of sin and guilt to do the devil’s will by subjecting their wills according to his own evil heart. However, God will use sin to show those he has chosen that “in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.” In Psalm 51, David repented. He acknowledged his own sins of adulatory, plotting to murder, and murdering Bathsheba’s husband Uriah. David said, “against you Lord and you only have I sinned so that you are justified when you judge me according to your righteous standard. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and create a new spirt in me.”

When we repent, where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. When we repent, God doesn’t leave us on the trash heap of sin and iniquity. He’ll pick up the threads of our broken hearts and weave them together again. God is a God of forgiveness… not because we’re deserving of forgiveness, not because we’re deserving of love…. But because forgiveness and love is the nature of God himself.

For God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. As Cory Ten Boom said, “there is no pit so deep, but that God is deeper still.” For in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.

In the power and comfort of God’s Holy Spirit, we don’t need to change our political systems. We need to change our hearts. Then when we approach his throne of grace having been forgiven, we can enter into our Father’s presence clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

… that we may ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael

A New Attitude

What does Jesus require? What doth the Lord require of thee? He has redeemed us from the power of sin not because we were deserving of forgiveness. He loved us when we were unloveable. Not because of who we are but because of who He is. Love, mercy and grace are the nature of God himself.

In the sermon on the mount, Jesus presented a new approach to our attitudes of heart. The beatitudes are the “beautiful attitudes” that will set our hearts free.

Pete recalls that while he was playing baseball in North Carolina, Suzan came to visit him. Suzan knew that she had to make a decision about what direction her life would take. She had decided to finally break off their relationship. They had broken up so many times before that she was concerned about Pete’s reaction. Suzan told him that she had met a new beau in Mexico named Armando. He wooed her lovingly with dignity, respect, and kindness. Armando was genuinely interested in her and demonstrated his affection by wining and dining her. He even played the guitar and serenaded her with beautiful Spanish songs.

Suzan expected Pete to respond in a fit of jealous rage. This would have been the “old Pete’s” response. But while Suzan had been in Mexico, Pete had dedicated his life to Christ. He had read the book, “The Bobby Richardson Story” about the life of an All Star Yankee second baseman who was also a devout Christian. When Pete read this book, he had prayed, “Lord, I know I’m not the man you created me to be. Lord please make me that man.” At that moment Pete had a complete change of heart.

Suzan was taken aback by Pete’s gracious response. She said, “I still want to date you but I want to spend a week with Armando when he comes to visit me from Mexico City.” Pete said, “Let me get this straight. You want to move to this town to be near me. You want to date me, but then you want to leave me to spend a week with Armando while he’s in town? I may be a new Christian, but even I know there’s something wrong with this picture.” Suzan was confused. She thought it would be easy to break up with Pete and move on with her new life. Instead she found herself in a quandary… falling in love with the new man that Pete had become. In her confusion, she finally said, “Well then, why don’t we just get married?” Pete said, “I’ll need to pray about that.” He prayed for about two seconds for God to confirm his decision. Then he answered, “Okay, let’s get married.”

By grace, God had changed Suzan’s heart. According to Romans 5:20, where sin abounded grace did much more abound. Ephesians 2:8 says, for by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. In order to understand the meaning of redemption and reconciliation by God’s grace, we must first understand that from which we were forgiven.

The root of sin is an attitude of pride. In our pride we have accumulated a resentment bank that says, “people have wronged me and never made it right.” One man said in a counseling session, “My wife doesn’t respect me.” Pete asked him, “Are you respectable?” It’s much easier to see the sin in others without recognizing the sin of resentment in our own hearts. The sin problem is that we see the sin in others while being blinded to the bigger sin… judging others for having wronged us. Jesus said, “how can you see to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye, when you have a two by four in your own eye.” The two by four is resentment, unforgiveness, and judgementalism… The things that blind us to the love of God. How do you “yank the plank?” How do you cast the two by four out of your own eye?

When God justifies us by the payment His son Jesus Christ paid on our behalf, he casts our sin as far is the east is from the west and remembers them no more. When we’re saved by His grace through his son’s sacrifice for sin, we are made the righteousness of Christ.

The word sin means to miss the mark. However, the emphasis of the word sin is not on the missing but on the mark itself. The mark is the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The devil’s ploy is to remind us how far short of the mark we fall. But if we confess our sins, our broken fellowship, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

According to the beatitudes, forgiveness starts with humility. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Jeremiah 24:7 says I will put it in your hearts to humble yourselves to know me. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, returning to God begins with a heart humbled before the Lord: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

The Old Testament law of sin and death showed God’s people that in themselves, they could not keep his righteous commandments. When people try to prove righteousness in their own power, then God allows them to reap the consequences of their self serving sin nature.

Jesus said, if you’re bringing an offering before God and have an issue against your brother, first go reconcile with your brother. Then you can come back and offer your sacrifice to God with a pure and clean heart of forgiveness.

As needy men of God, our need is to ask forgiveness and give forgiveness. This is why Jesus said in his model prayer, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Without a heart that forgives others, we cannot approach God’s throne of grace with a pure heart of meekness and humility. Without forgiving others, our heart says, Jesus’ death on my behalf was not sufficient. The unforgiving heart is an unforgiven heart.

I forgave and set the prisoner free, only to find that the prisoner was me. The greatest freedom is in allowing the Lord to captivate our hearts: Make me a captive Lord, and then I shall be free…. Force me to render up my sword and I shall conqueror be. I sink in life’s alarms if by myself I stand. Imprison me within thine arms and free shall be my stand.

That with a heart of humility and forgiveness…
…We may live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael

Here is the link to the video and audio of this message.  I hope you’re as blessed to listen to this message as I was to deliver it.

Fusion vs. Confusion – Influencers OC (subsplash.com)

Below are the notes that I prepared prior to speaking.

My prayer as always is that we together would live to the praise of the glory of God’s grace.

Your brother in Christ,

Michael Message for Influencers Fullerton and Irvine April 14 and 16, 2021

Confusion versus Fusion

Good Morning Y’all. Most of y’all know me. I’m the one who takes notes of Pete’s messages and then the media team publishes them in the Influencers OC app. Since I have the honor of speaking this morning, y’all will have to take your own notes.

In our prayer meetings we always read a passage from Psalms. One psalm came to mind. In Psalm 45, the psalmist says, “my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” The Bible is full of figurative language. Usually my I pad is the tongue of a ready speaker. Today, my tongue is the i pad of a ready note taker. So it’s a blessing to share with y’all this morning.

In our meetings sometimes Bill Kauble asks the simple question, “Why are you here?” I said to Bill there are two reasons, First I had a divine appointment. I heard the voice of God calling me but it sounded like Bill Kauble. Pete often says, you can fake caring, but you can’t fake showing up. If you want to be dis-appointed then diss God’s appointment. Every moment of every day is a divine appointment to abide with and within Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The second reason I’m here is a quote from an old Jack Nicholson movie, “As Good As It Gets”…. “I’m here because you’re here, you make me want to be a better man.” I’m honored to choke in your dust as together we choke in the dust of the rabbi, Jesus Christ.

Justin McDonald said in our last men’s retreat, “when I’m around you all I feel like a lion in the midst of Daniels.” That’s the way I feel around you all. I’m humbled and honored to be in your presence. I Thank God for reproof whenever I’m in your presence.

Today’s message is about Confusion versus Fusion

First let’s open with a word of Prayer…….

There is so much confusion in this world.
There’s a profusion of confusion…. The devil’s ploy is to divide and conquer. He pits competing factions against each other so people will split apart and fight each other. There is rich against poor, educated against uneducated, husbands against wives, parents against children, boomers against Millennials, men against women, democrats against republicans, liberals against conservatives, workers against management, Sunnis against Shiites, Catholics against Protestants, citizens against aliens, Trojans against Bruins, haves against the have-nots….. and the list goes on and on ad infinitum.

According to James 3:16,
For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
The word Confusion is the Greek Word Akatastasia. Which means instability, a state of disorder, chaos, and confusion. Confusion is the result of strife, contentions and competing factions.

The context of this verse is wisdom: the wisdom of this world versus the wisdom of God. The devil is the god of disorder, chaos, and confusion. On the other hand God is the god of order, peace, and unity.

According to John 10:10, the the devil’s purpose is to steal, to kill, and to destroy. He tears things apart: In stealing, he separates us from our rightful possessions, in killing he separates us from our physical life, in destroying, he explodes that which God unifies, he blows it to smitherines. When we fall into his temptation to sin, sin separates from our fellowship with God.

What’s the opposite of confusion? Confusion is kind of like the question Will Rogers asked: What’s the opposite of progress? The answer is congress. Con-fusion means without fusion so the opposite of confusion is fusion. Confusion tears things apart. Fission disintegrates whereas fusion integrates. Integrity is the result of fusion.

Nuclear Physics teaches that here’s a lot of destructive power in an explosive nuclear fission reaction. An atomic bomb releases its explosive energy by breaking the bonds between the protons and neutrons in nuclear fission. Fission is different than fusion. In nuclear fission elements such as uranium or plutonium atomize, they explode into smaller elements. A nuclear fission reaction produces a million times more energy than a chemical explosion in a conventional bomb.

However a nuclear fusion reaction produces four times more energy than a fission reaction. Fission is the power of con-fusion, of exploding of flying apart of disintegration. A fusion reaction is the power of implosion, of unity, of integration, of bringing together individual components into a unified whole. In a nuclear fusion reaction, two nuclei of hydrogen fuse together to form one atom of Helium. Nuclear fusion is the reaction that powers the sun and the stars. Nuclear fusion converts mass into energy according to Einstein’s famous equation E=MC2.

The lesson is that God’s power of unity, of bringing together is much greater than the devil’s power of confusion to separate and divide. Ephesians 4:3 says that we should endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

What is it that unifies and fuses us together within the church, the body of Christ, God’s dwelling place? Let’s read. Colossians 3:12-17.

12. Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
13. Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
14. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
15. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
17. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.”

It is charity, the agape love of God that unifies us in the body of Christ. The peace of God is related to unity. Most people think that peace is the absence of war. However Jesus said peace is not the worldly kind of peace. You can’t have peace without the prince of peace. In John 14:27 Jesus said, “My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

How do we get the peace of God so that our hearts can be joined together, integrated with God’s heart in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace?

Let’s turn to Ephesians 2.
13. But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
14. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
15. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
16. And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
17. And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.

We get the peace of God through Jesus Christ’s reconciling us through the sacrifice of his innocent blood on our behalf. Peace means the end of strife and contention between God and man. In order to reconcile our hearts with God and with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to meet each other at the foot of the cross. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

How did we get to the place where we needed to be fused, reconciled, made at peace with God?

The devil’s original “con-fusion” was when he tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. God gave Adam and Eve only one commandment: “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For on the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.”

In His temptation of Eve, The devil sowed seeds of doubt and confusion. First he questioned the love of God. Then he questioned the word of God. First he questioned God’s love. He implied, “God doesn’t really love you. He doesn’t want what’s best for you. He wants to keep you ignorant of the knowledge of good and evil.” Then he questioned the word of God…. “did God really say?….”. She knew exactly what God had said. However, when she considered the devil’s lies and questioned the word of God, then she was caught in devil’s devil’s strife, confusion, and contention against God. When you doubt the word of God and the love of God, you’ve taken the devil’s bait hook line and sinker. All he has to do is reel you in.

On the day that Adam and Eve sinned by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they died that very day. What died? Their spiritual connection with God.

Jesus Christ came to redeem us from The sin nature we inherited from Adam. Through his atoning sacrifice on our behalf, we were saved when we confessed Jesus as Lord and believed that God raised him from the dead.

Now that we have peace with God having been born again of God’s spirit, how do we manifest the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace?

We do this by keeping the two great commandments: to love God above all and your neighbor as yourself.

Not many people know, but the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai were not so that he could punish the children of Israel when they stepped out of line. This is what the world thinks. The Ten Commandments were actually God’s “terms of endearment” with Israel. They were God’s wedding vows with Israel. The first commandment covers all of the other commandments. The first commandment in the KJV says, “thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” However, the ancient Aramaic text says, “thou shalt have no other God’s between your face and my face.” Why? Because we’re attached face to face in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and charity, the love of God is the bond that binds us together.

As Pastor Pete says, when you have your vertical relationship in tact, loving God above all, then all of your horizontal relationships will fall in line. If you keep the first commandment to love God above all then you don’t have to worry about the other nine “sins of commission.” You just have to worry about the one “sin of omission,” not loving God “with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength.” This is the reason Peter said, “love covers a multitude of sins.”

There are two types of salvation and two types of repentance. One is the new birth when we’re made whole when we received the gift of God’s Holy Spirit according to Romans 10:9-10. The other is “working out your own salvation” , your own wholeness with fear and trembling…. with reverence awe, and respect. Phil 2:12.

Prayer is fusing our heart with God’s heart… so is studying and meditating on the word. To fuse our hearts with God’s heart means that we have a common standard for truth. That common standard is the Word of God and Jesus Christ, the word of God made flesh. If God is love and God is his word, then the word of God is the love of God.

How do you overcome con-fusion. You fuse your heart together with God’s heart with the love of God which is the bond of perfectness in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

Then we can love our neighbors as ourselves. We can serve God by serving others for Jesus said, in that you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.

We are called to counter confusion with fusion in the unity of the spirit by bearing one anothers’ burdens…. by serving in the body of Christ.

We’re all individual components within the body of Christ.. he has fitted us each into the body with a particular function and purpose as he has seen fit. Ephesians 4:15-16 Says,
15. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
16. From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”

How do you counter confusion? To overcome confusion, fuse together by endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace by loving God above all and your neighbor as yourself.

How long shall we continue to battle against confusion? I’d encourage you to read all of Ephesians chapter 4. It’s in verse 13: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: at the return of Jesus Christ.

An old hymn of the faith says,

Blest be the tide that binds our hearts in Christian love,
The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.

Before our Maker’s throne we pour our ardent prayers;our fears, our hopes, our aims are one, our comforts and our cares.We share each other’s woes,each other’s burdens bear,and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.When we asunder part, it gives us keenest pain,but we shall still be joined in heart, and hope to meet again.
The glorious hope revives our courage on the way:in perfect friendship we shall live in God’s eternal day.

Amen and Amen

Thank you and God bless you all!

Michael Low

Wow, it’s great to be here. I’m humbled by your presence. You know, Pete often says that we we’re here to choking each other’s dust. So I’m glad to be choking in yalls dust. I remember at our last men’s retreat, Justin McDonald said, when I’m around y’all,

I feel like a lion in the midst of Daniels. That’s why I feel when I’m around you, you guys. The Bible says that the word of God is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, which is instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, through and throughly perfected and all good works. When I’m in your Miss. I thank you guys for reproving me over and over and over because your epistles known and read of all man, most people think that this word reproof is a bad word, reproof, correction. Don’t beat me, Lord. But nothing could be further from the truth. This word reproof means to prove over and over and over God’s power in our lives. That’s what reproof is, and the word correction means to restore to an upright position. So I’m glad to be around all y’all. It’s great to be together in person for a change is good that the courts have recognized that church is actually an essential requirement. We’re no longer any non essential, we’re essential. The Bible says For sake not the fellowship of yourself together as a matter of some is, but assembled together in so much the more as you see the day approaching. So it’s great to be with y’all in person. Normally, when Bill Cabo introduces me, he’ll say, this is Michael Lowe. He’s a son of Edward Lowe. And I’m always honored to be introduced as a son of Edward Lowe. You know, Pete often says that, that men keep a resentment bank because they were wounded by their dads, they have father wounds that go on and on and on, and those father wounds hurt from generation to generation to generation. It’s hard for me to relate to that, because my dad was actually a quote, man of God, unquote, a man of God. I never knew what this word man of God meant, until Pete anointed me with oil, and put this bracelet on my hand, anointed me man of God. Normally, when you call a person, a man of God, they’ll look down in shame and say, Oh, no, I’m not worthy. Don’t call me a man of God. I’m not worthy of that title. But when you think of that term, man of God, well, what does that mean? You know, we speak English. Sometimes, different languages are more precise than English, the term man of God of God. In Latin, that’s what they called. The genitive case is the genitive of possession. What does man of God mean? genitive of possession, means God’s man, Apostrophe S. That’s how we say, Man of God, in English, God’s man, the essence of Christianity is not who we are. It’s who’s we are. That’s Romans 10, nine and 10. Romans 10, nine and 10. If thou

shalt confess,

Jesus is Lord, Lord means owner. Christianity is not who we are. Christianity is who’s we are. Man of God, the genitive of possession. I might get off on a little tangent here. If you guys, any of y’all were present on Wednesday, maybe you heard this message and or variation of this message, and depending on whether God calls an audio audible here, but so if you’ve heard this message before, it’s deja vu all over again. But that’s okay. Because repetition is a good thing. Pete asked me once. What’s the difference between joy and rejoice? I had to think about that one. I said, Pete, I can’t think of anything right now. Let me take that one under advisement. So I thought about that. Then I thought to myself, haha. The difference between joy and rejoice is the same difference between Pete and repeat. Some, sometimes repetition is a good thing. So if you’ve heard it before, I hear it again. And that’s a good thing. Let me get to my notes here. Because I actually did take a few notes. Most of y’all know me as the guy that takes notes. They publish them on the website. Somebody asked me once, why do you take such prolific notes? You know, you write everything down. Why do you do that? And the guy that asked me was actually he was a photographer. So I said, you know, some people have a photographic memory. But mine still under development. So that’s why I take notes. Hopefully, y’all are blessed. And the other thing that comes to mind is, Pete was reading my notes went and he said to himself, I didn’t realize I was that good. Then, of course, Bill Cabo. You know, Bill cobbles. His job is to keep Pete humble. So Bill, cobble said to Pete, no, you’re really not that good. But that’s why I’m here. You know, when I’m around you guys, like I said, y’all reprove me all the time. And I’m blessed to be in your company. I’m blessed to be reproved and corrected by your presence, because we’re all living epistles known read of all, man. And that’s what we do we build each other up in the body of Christ. This morning’s talk is the title if I were going to title it would be the difference between confusion and fusion. What’s the difference between confusion and fusion, there’s so much confusion in this world around us. But before we get into the message this morning, let’s open with a word of prayer because we’d like to put God first. Father, we thank you for this opportunity, this divine appointment to be with you. As pastor Pete says, Father, you can fake hearing that you can’t fake showing up. So thank you, Father, for this divine appointment, where we can worship you truly spiritually, where we can align our hearts with your hearts, where we can build each other up in the most holy faith. Thank you, Father, for these men. Thank you, Father, that the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart may be acceptable, and to the O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Thank you, Father for this assembly. And this fellowship that we can share one with another, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

So

what’s the difference between confusion and fusion? You know, there’s so much confusion in this world. There’s a pro fusion of confusion in the world around us. We were praying this morning about the divisions in politics, and how our country is turning his back on the foundations upon which our country was founded, you know, our country was actually founded as a Christian nation. There’s a book called the light and the glory if you’ve never read that book, tremendous book about the founding of the United States, and why people came to the United States. Pete often says that there were only two countries in world history that were founded on the principles of the Word of God. One was Israel, and the other words the United States of America, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You know, the founding fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence, in firm reliance on divine providence. They understood this word Providence, we don’t understand that don’t understand this word, Providence, you need to read the Valley of vision, because it’s a book of Puritan prayers. They understood this thing about God, you are our inheritance, you are our Providence, you’re our best portion by night. And by day, they understood the providence of God. They wrote the Declaration of Independence. It’s called the Declaration of Independence, because we were declaring our independence from Great Britain. But if you read the Declaration of Independence is actually the Declaration of Independence. In from reliance on divine providence, we pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. That was the reason that the United States of America was founded. The Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of Independence upon Almighty God, they knew the word God. Now, there’s so much confusion in this world. The adversaries job is to divide and conquer. That’s what he does, he splits things apart. He blows things up. He atomized this thing’s His job is to destroy, steal, to kill and to destroy. We’ll get into that a little bit later as far as what that means what take that apart. Because the devil came, the thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy I, Jesus Christ and come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. How does the devil divide and conquer? With this profusion of confusion?

Well,

it’s easy to look around this. It’s easy to become a quote news, junkie, unquote, and find out well, what is it that we’re against, but that’s what the adversary does he he gets us into this mentality of us against them. Somebody said that the problem with the United States is that there’s too much E Pluribus and not enough Unum. For you Latin scholars, too much E Pluribus and not enough Unum? Well, the adversary is the God of E Pluribus. He’s the one who divides he’s the one who separates our hearts one from another. That was ploy. He pits competing factions against each other. So people split apart and fight each other. There’s rich against poor, educated against sun indicated husbands against wives, parents against children, boomers against millennials, men against women, Democrats against Republicans, liberals against conservatives, workers against management. Sunni’s against Catholics against Protestants, citizens against aliens, Trojans against ruins. Are we stepping on any toes here? Catholics, Protestants have that against they have not. And the list goes on and on and on, ad infinitum. Because that’s the devil. His job is to divide and conquer. And that’s exactly from Scripture, James 316 says, For where there is envying, and strife, there’s confusion and every evil work. The word confusion is a Greek word. Aqa to stasia if I’m pronouncing it right, in Florida, we have a guy named George, you’re gay. He speaks Greek. He’s from Greece. So he’s always correcting me on the Greek. He says, you know, if you want to understand Greek, come talk to me, because Greeks very precise language, unlike English, English, oftentimes is subject to interpretation. But Greek is very precise. It’s made up of root words and, and prefixes and suffixes, and extremely precise language. That’s one of the reasons the Greek was the New Testament was written in Greek, because it’s not subject to quote, interpretation, one’s own interpretation. It says what it means and it means what it says extremely precise language. But this word, strikes strife and confusion. Confusion is this word, it’s a Greek word, and it means instability, a state of disorder, chaos and confusion. And confusion is a result of strife, contentions, and competing factions. Now, when you read this verse in James, James is a great button. James is about faith, and the things that we do to reinforce our faith. And it starts with this thing that we were talking about in prayer this morning tribulation trials, we think the trials are a bad thing. But trials have to do with this reproof word. Try means to essay, it means to prove. Ultimately, it means to prove God’s character within those verses says, silver is for the crucible, and the furnaces for gold, but the heart is for the Lord. The heart is for the Lord. trials are to refine us, tribulation worketh patience and patience, experience, and experience, hope and hope make it not a shame because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit which is given to us. The word experience is the word character. These assez these trials, these temptations, the the tribulation proves God’s character in us. Because what’s going to burn up? All that is done nothing in this world that that is done matters. Only that which is done in Christ will last. Everything in this world will pass. Only that which is done in Christ shall last. So we’re gonna look at the difference between confusion and fusion. And what’s the difference? So confusion is we’re talking about chaos and disorder, but God is a God of order. There’s a word vs says order my steps in my word, because God is a God of order.

He, we can make all the plans we want. That’s what he says. He says, You know, I make a strat plan every year at the beginning of the year, about the third week of a new year, I throw my strat plan out the window because God obliterates it. It has nothing to do with reality. So we’re to order our steps in the Word of God, it’s one thing to plan. It’s another thing to order our steps in the word, because God is a God of order, not disorder. So, if you’re looking at this word, confusion, confusion is a great word. It’s made up of two words as well, two English words con and fusion. And it reminds me of something that Will Rogers had said he was talking to a crowd of people, you know, Will Rogers was a humorous to satirise for many generations ago. But he said some incredible things. Because truth is truth. Whoever says it, and Will Rogers was talking to a crowd, and he says, you know, what? Do you know what the opposite of progress is? So nobody raise their hand. But somebody here in the crowd remembers a quote, The opposite of progress is Congress. So what’s the opposite of confusion? Con means against an fusion. So the opposite of confusion is fusion. If you’ve ever studied nuclear physics, not many people do, I mean, I mean, if you’re gonna go off on a tangent, said, study a little bit of nuclear physics that’ll blow your mind literally and figuratively. But in nuclear physics, there’s one type of nuclear reaction is called a fission reaction. Efficient reaction is like an explosion. Efficient reaction, you take an element, this radioactive uranium or plutonium, and you split that atom, you split the nucleus of the atom, the protons and the neutrons. And when you do that, when you split the atom, it releases tremendous energy. They say that efficient reaction, the energy released is about a million times more than is released in a chemical reaction, an atomic bomb produces a million times more energy than a conventional chemical bond. So there’s tremendous power in efficient, efficient is this explosive reaction, nuclear fission. But then, there’s another type of nuclear reaction is called nuclear fusion. In fusion, what you do is you take two atoms of hydrogen and fuse those atoms together. And then the fusing of those atoms, even more energy is released to the nuclear fission. So the power of fusion nuclear fusion releases four times as much energy as nuclear fission. And when you look at that analogy, this is the same analogy about confusion versus fusion. The difference is, were to be fused together in the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, the power of fusion of coming together is much greater than the power efficient division, confusion against fusion. Greater is He that is in you, and he that is in the world. And you know, the devil tries to divide people, especially in the church. He’s already got the guys that are outside of the church, they’re subject to His will. But when he gets churches and believers

to split apart denominations, and we talked about Catholics versus Protestants, you know, Pete says that one of the things that influencers is is a quote, para church organization. Para means to come, come alongside the churches to help the churches. But then, there’s another thing about influencers as well. We’re not a parachurch organization, we are the church, because the church is the body of Christ. And Jesus said, We’re two or more gathered together in my name, there Am I in their myth, this word church is the Greek word ecosia. Meaning out from among an extra sia means to call out from among the darkness of this world so that we can be fused together in the unity of the Spirit of the bond of peace. In our we have a small group that meets on Thursday, you That’s a remnant of an old journey Group, a bunch of guys and we’re studying First Corinthians, the theme, one of the things of First Corinthians because for reading First Corinthians is like reading first California. Corinthians is a book of reproof. reproof means where you’re, there’s doctrine, which is how to believe rightly, then there’s reproof, which tells us where we’re not believing rightly. One of the things of First Corinthians is this unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, because it talks about being like minded. So, this morning, we’re going to talk about how do you get this fusion instead of confusion? How do you counter the confusion of this world? And bear with me while I log on to my thing a year, so I don’t get too far off on a tangent. So what what does God teach us about fusion versus confusion? And how do we counter the confusion of this world?

What is it that unifies and teases us together in the body of Christ? So we’re gonna read a passage out of Colossians? And we’re gonna go to Colossians 312 through 17. But the question is, what is it that unites and fuses us together within the church, the body of Christ? Well, the answer, I’m going to read the answer, and then we’re going to get the context of the answer. So how you counter confusion is in Colossians, chapter three, verse 14, and this verse says, reading from the King James now, and above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness charity, if the love of God, the unconditional love of God, the Greek court, I got paid. That’s what George told me how to pronounce it, because he’s a native Greek speaker. And of course, I do it with this, y’all Southern pronunciation thing, so forgive me. So Above all, these things put on charity, the unconditional love of God, in the renewed mine, in manifestation, this charity, the love of God, which is a bond of perfectness. That’s how we get this unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. So I’ll read the context here. This is, again, Colossians, chapter three, verses 12, through 17. In the King James, put on there for as the elective God, holy and beloved vows of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mine, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing, one another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do Ye, and then this verse, and above all these things, put on charity, which is a bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also you’re called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. So, what is it the fuses together? What does it mean, to be joined together in the unity of the Spirit of the bond of peace, the thing that joins us together is charity, the love of God and the renewed mind and manifestation. And it says, In the peace of God, the past solid understanding, that’s the result of this unity. That’s the result of fusing our hearts together in the love of God, because the love of God is a tie that binds us together. In Christian charity, the love of God, because we are the body of Christ and in the body of Christ. What binds us together is this love of God, and the love of God is associated with this word, peace, the peace of God. You know, you can look up the word peace in Merriam Webster’s dictionary or funk and wagnalls, or dictionary online, and that will give you the world’s definition of peace. But the problem with the world’s definition is the devil the adversary calls good evil and evil, good. The world the definition of peace means the absence of war. But that’s not the biblical definition of peace. That’s why I like to read the King James Version because it uses all these obscure terms. It’s not written in the common vernacular. So it makes me look up the words. When you read the Bible, one of the first things you recognize is that the Bible is its own dictionary. It’s its own quote, data dictionary, unquote. If you’re going to do an IT project a systems project. Develop a relational database. It starts with a data dictionary. You have to define the term first. And the Bible is its own dictionary. It defines its own terms, this word peace. It’s not the worldly definition of peace. Why did Jesus say, he said, in john, Chapter 14, verse 27, my mom’s favorite verse, by the way, it says, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as a world Give it, give it to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid. worldly peace is different from the peace that we have. Because of Jesus Christ, you can’t have peace, until you have the Prince of Peace. That’s the key, this thing about confusion, to counter confusion. It has to do with reconciling our hearts back to God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. We get the peace of God through Jesus Christ, reconciling us through the sacrifice of his innocent blood on our behalf. Peace means the end of all strife and contention between God and man, in order to reconcile our hearts with God, and with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to meet each other at the foot of the cross. Why? Because there’s one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. So how did we get to the place that we needed to be fused and reconciled and made peace with God? Well, it goes back to the original sin in the Garden of Eden. Because, remember, the adversaries purpose is to steal, to kill and to destroy. The adversaries purpose is to divide and conquer. The main thing that the adversaries job is, is to separate our hearts from God’s heart. You know, in the Garden of Eden, God only gave one command, there was only one command only one thing that Adam and Eve needed to do you remember that one thing was the one command that God gave Adam and Eve was of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Thou shalt not eat of it. For on the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die, one command, only one command, don’t eat it the tree of knowledge of good and evil, on the day thou eatest thereof, thou shall surely die. That was God’s command to Adam and Eve, they could do anything else. Don’t do that one thing. Well, what did the adversary do? How did he get them to disobey God’s command? There were two things that God did to divide Eve’s heart from God’s heart. First, he questioned the love of God. Did God really say what she knew exactly what God said? Did God really say? The devil says, God doesn’t love you. He doesn’t want what’s best for you.

He wants to leave you ignorant of this

knowledge of good and evil. He doesn’t love you. He questioned the love of God. God’s purpose. He questioned who God is, because God is loved. In Him, there is no darkness at all. Satan said to Eve, God doesn’t really love you. He wants you to remain ignorant of the knowledge of good and evil, gigabyte. God doesn’t love you. Love yourself. Don’t love God. He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t. He’s not deserving. One thing the devil did separated Eve’s heart from the love of God. One second thing, the devil did. Question the Word of God. When you question the love of God, and the Word of God, you’re pretty much fine. At that point. When you doubt the Word of God and the love of God. You’re no longer under God’s domain, you’re in the devil’s ballpark, you’re under the domain of the devil. The original sin was this thing with doubt. You doubt the Word of God and you doubt the love of God. The devil is got his hook in you. All he has to do is reel you in. inevitable at that point, the fall of man was doubting the love of God. And the word of God. Did God really say? God’s not faithful to His Word? She knew exactly what God said when she considered the devil’s lie. That was the fall of man. confusion. If you no longer have God’s word, You only have the devil’s word, because the devil is this the God of the world, whose eyes the god of this world has blinded lets the glorious light of the gospel of truth should shine unto them. When Adam and Eve’s sin, what they lost that day, because it says on the day that thou, etc, thereof that day, Hebrew toh yom the very day, on the day, thou eatest thereof, thou shall surely die. Well, what died that day? If you read Genesis, it doesn’t seem like they died that day, you know, they went on and on, they got kicked out of the garden, they had children, they live generations and generations longer, as far as children and children’s children. And that, so the question is, Did God really say, on the day thou eatest thereof, thou shall surely die seen as a i, there’s a contradiction there. But when you read the Scripture, what died that day was your spiritual connection with God spirit? Because God is spirit, there were three acts of creation. The first act was, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, everything that the earth is matter, space, time, and energy, all interrelated. We were talking about this fusion thing before. You know, fusion is the power that power is the sun and the stars. Fusion is the energy of a black hole where everything implodes continuously. Vision is according to this equation, equals mc squared. Fusion is what converts matter into energy. That’s this fusion thing, like the adversary’s a God of confusion, what died the day that they hated the Tree of the Knowledge, because God made man, body, soul and spirit. Body is this earthen vessel soul is our biological life. But it says, there’s a verse in Genesis where God said, Let us create men in our own image, in the image of God created them, male and female created he them, Well, what does the image of God, God is spirit. Spirit has no form, or colinas. Spirit is who God is God’s Spirit. That’s what died, the day they ate the tree, the knowledge of good and evil, the Spirit of God, and without the Spirit of God, you can’t understand the things of the Spirit. That’s what First Corinthians is about. The natural man, the man of body and soul, without the spirit of god understand it, not the things of the Spirit of God, because they’re spiritually discerned. That’s how we got to the place that we needed to be reconciled. That’s the that’s where we got to the place that we needed Jesus Christ.

Because what’s

the essence of salvation? You know, you look up this word, salvation. There’s one verse, a script in the talks about salvation. That’s Romans 10, nine and 10, that thou shall confess with my mouth, the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shall be saved. The Greek word for saved is this word shozo. If you study systematic Matic theology, you can look at the whole subject of quote, soteriology, unquote, that’s about this Greek word shozo. This Greek word so so again, it’s a biblical definition. It’s not the vernacular, Merriam Webster, and funk and wagnalls definition, this word shozo, the essence of the word needs to be made whole. The implication is, if you’re not saved, you’re not whole. If you’re saved, you’re born again. Not of corruptible seed, not a body and soul that you inherited from Adam and Eve, ultimately, from your mom and dad, through Adam and Eve seed, not a corruptible seed, but incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. So, the reason Jesus came was your redemption in mind, we had to be redeemed, we had to be reconciled to God, through the Spirit of God in Christ in you. That’s what Romans 10 nine is about. That’s what salvation is about Jesus Christ. The word Jesus means Savior. Savior, needs to be made complete, to be made whole report. So So that’s how we got to the point that we needed to be

fused

together with God through His Son Jesus Christ, in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. That’s the difference between confusion and fusion. The devil divides and conquers. He separates our hearts from God’s heart primarily. Jesus Christ came so that we might have life We might have it more abundantly in the life that he’s talking about is the life of God in Christ in you, the Spirit of God, the hope of glory, Christ in you the hope of glory. So, there’s one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. If you look in the book of Ephesians, it talks about this word reconciliation, another great word. What does reconciliation What does redemption, we talked about salvation. Boy, these are great terms. These are foundational concepts of who we are in Christ, and who’s we are in Christ, who’s we are, Jesus is Lord doesn’t mean Lord means owner. We don’t have a concept of slaves and masters. But a master is an owner, a lord is an owner. And this master slave relationship, we think, because we were brought up in the United States where we had slavery and that sort of thing. But slave slavery, and in the Old Testament, didn’t mean that you own somebody physically, or you owned them as a factor of production, you own the fruit of their labor. That’s what this master slave relationship was. And that’s what Jesus says, He owns who we are, he owns the fruit of our labor. Because we’re in this together, it’s God who worked within you to willing to do of His good pleasure, this reconciliation thing. We needed to be reconciled to God, because Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus said to the disciples, who say ye that I am, and they said, you know, some say that you’re one of the prophets come back from the dead, some say your john the baptist reincarnate. And then he says, well, who say ye that I am? Peter jumped up of course, and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus said, Blessed art thou, Simon bar, Jonah, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father which is in heaven, that word, the Christ, the Son of the living God, Christ means Messiah ever looked up that word, Messiah. Here’s another great word. The word Messiah is the quote, Anointed One, unquote. Well, now you have to look up this word anointed. There’s no way this is one of Murphy’s laws. corollaries. Murphy’s Law says, if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. Murphy’s Law corollary says, There’s no answers only cross references. How true. How true. Because the cross of Christ is the crux of history, the cross of Christ, because Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the anointed one, this word anointed, it literally means the smear with oil. There are two reasons for anointing one was for ordination, or to identify a person who’s been ordained, inaugurated to a particular position for a particular function by his superior, the anointing, it identifies you as having a particular position to fulfill an inauguration. And having conferred upon that individual, the power and authority that comes with that position for which you’re being anointed. That’s one reason for anointing is an ordination or an appointment. The other thing with anointing has to do with reconciliation. If you’ve ever looked at, you know, they used to have these, these cartoons that we used to teach our kids when they were in elementary school, one of those cartoons is Schoolhouse Rock. And one of those cartoons is this thing called Conjunction Junction. What’s your function? Conjunction Junction? What’s your function? Well, this anointing thing, Jesus Christ Himself is our Conjunction Junction.

This oil

is what lubricates our relationship between God and man, one God, and one mediator, the Conjunction Junction between God and man is Jesus Christ Himself. That’s the definition of this word, Messiah. So if you’re going to look at this unity of the Spirit of the mind of peace, the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace has to do with our having been reconciled. If you want to know what this word reconciliation means. It’s also that’s King James English again. It’s usually translated reconciling Asian reconciliation means to bring together that which has been separated. We were separated from God, because on the day that Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they died that day. They were separated from God because their spirit died. That’s what died. That’s what Jesus Christ came to make available, was the Spirit of God in Christ in you, not from Adam seed that we inherited from Adam, the Word of God or the word of man, the word of man is DNA, passed on from generation to generation. The DNA is actually a message, it’s a word of life, a biological life. But we’re not talking about biological life, we’re talking about the Word of God, being born again, not of corruptible seed, DNA, but an incorruptible, not by the word of biological life, but by the word of God, that limit and divided forever. When we confess Jesus as Lord, he’s our Conjunction Junction. He’s what reconciles us to God, he’s what gives us peace to God. If you look at this word reconciliation, it’s also translated into King James does the word atonement. atonement means at one mint. At one mint, is this word reconciliation, making of Twain one new man. And you can read that in in Ephesians. Chapter Two. In the book of Ephesians, is a tremendous book. There’s two great books of doctrine, doctrine is, is right teaching how to believe rightly. When is the book of Romans, it talks about salvation. We already quoted Romans 10, nine and 10. That’s for the individual believer, to reconcile us to God individually as in individual believers, when you read the book of Ephesians. Ephesians is about collectively the body of Christ, who we are in Christ, who we are the church, of the living God, God’s variegated message in the church, the collection, the body of Christ. That’s what fuses us together in the body of Christ is the love of God, and the Word of God. Two things fuses together. In the garden, the adversary tempted Eve, he said, God doesn’t love you. And God’s word is not true. But Jesus together back with God, is Jesus Christ, the love of God, made manifest, not because we were deserving of love, not because we were deserving of nurse mercy. Because love and mercy are the nature of God Himself. We can’t love God until he first loved us. Because until we had the Spirit of God, we didn’t have the capacity to love because that’s a spiritual thing. The love of God is a spiritual thing. The theme of Ephesians is the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace collectively, because collectively, we’re the body of Christ. We’re the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. We’re God’s dwelling place here on Earth. The journey to the inner chamber is a journey to the heart of God. You know, people read the Old Testament and they think, well, you know that I’m gonna condemn myself now because that’s the law of sin and death. It shows me how far short of of God’s righteousness I fallen. And when you read the 10 commandments. The first commandment is tied to the first and great commandment thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength. The first of the 10 commandments says, Thou shall have no other gods before me. That’s the English translation from the Hebrew. You know, king, king james is a literal translation, word for word from the Hebrew into the English. The King James says, Thou shall have no other gods before me. But if you read the Aramaic text, Aramaic is an ancient dialect,

it actually proceeds the Hebrew, the Aramaic text, literally translated means, thou shall have no other gods between your face and my face. That’s the Aramaic text. You know, people think that God gave the 10 commandments, so that Israel can understand that they’re in sin that they can’t make, they can’t do these things on their own. But really, what the 10 Commandments were, were God’s Terms of Endearment with Israel. They were actually God’s wedding vows to Israel. wedding vows are Terms of Endearment, what are the terms of God’s endearment God I’d said, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Why? Because I love you. We’re bound together by this bond of love. Charity, you didn’t need the Spirit in the bond of perfectness. That’s why God gave Israel the 10 commandments. It was his wedding vow, his Terms of Endearment. I’m a jealous God, because I want to be your sole provider, and your sole provider. So le n s o ul, has to do with this divine providence thing, because I’m here. Don’t go outside of the canopy of my protection. I’m not giving you these laws to restrict you, and to keep you on a short leash, so that I can cast my wrath on you when you step out of line. That was not the purpose of the 10 commandments, the purpose of the 10 Commandments were bound together in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, because I’m your God, and I love you, and we’re bound by this law of love. That’s the 10 commandments, thou shalt have no other gods before me. first and great commandment, the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So how do you counter confusion? fusion, the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, read Ephesians chapter two about this reconciliation thing, and then read Ephesians chapter four, about the Unity’s within the church. Ephesians four talks about well, how do we keep the unity of the Spirit in the mind of peace. And it says, God has given to us certain gifts within the body of Christ so that we can be fused together. And he gave some apostles, some prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying the body of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, by every wind of doctrine and by the sleight of men and cutting craftiness. We’re in the lion wait to deceive. So he’s given us these ministries, men of God within the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, that we confuse our hearts together in the love of God in the renewed mind and manifestation. How do we fuse together one with another in the body of Christ? Jesus said, in the second commandment, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. That’s how we manifest the love of God. That’s how we fuse ourselves together in the body of Christ. Why? Because Jesus said, in that thou has done it unto the least of these, my brother, and you’ve done it, and to me, there’s two ways to counter confusion. One is with the love of God, because God is love. The other is with the Word of God, because God is His Word. And Jesus Christ is the word of God made flesh, the love of God, and the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. That’s how we fuse our hearts together with God’s heart. You know, the purpose of prayer. In the United States, when we pray, we say, Please, God, please meet my needs. It’s all about me. You’re here to meet my needs God, didn’t you say that? whatsoever yet shall ask him for believing you shall receive. Well, God, I’m coming to you and believing, and it’s all about me. So you’re here to meet my needs. So please, please, please, please, please me. That’s the line from a Beatles song. They didn’t they didn’t speak the Queen’s English. They spoke Cockney. But that’s the way we think because we, we think in English, and English says please, please, please, please please me. It’s all about me. What’s in it for me? The prosperity gospel. But, you know, if you speak French, they say the French is a language of diplomacy.

It’s hard to say anything mean if you’re speaking proper French proper Finch. Proper French is sanctified by law Academy fall says proper diplomatic French. In French they don’t say Please, Please Please Me. They say she route play. Shoe the play means If it pleases you, because not about me. Prayer is not aligning God’s heart with my heart. Prayer is aligning my heart with God’s heart. Seeking First, the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these other things shall be added unto you. The first and great commandment, the first commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods between your face in my face. You do that one thing because of the love of God, the other nine are automatic. Because you’re doing it with the love of God. You love God above all, don’t worry about those sins of commission. worry about that sin of omission, not loving God above all. When you love God above all, all the other things fall in line, the counter confusion, the love of God and the Word of God, because God is love and God is His Word. Therefore, God’s word is love. Jesus’s prayer in the garden of get get seminude with Stephen play, not my will, but Thine be done. If it pleases you. The essence of the abundant life is not in stuff. It’s not in possessions. Ryan Van dusen did a tremendous series about treasuring treasures in heaven and not upon Earth. Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also to counter confusion. We have to fuse our hearts together with God’s heart with the love of God, and the Word of God. Because it’s not about who we are is who’s we are. The greatest blessing is not in seeking the blessing. The greatest blessing is in seeking the Bible.

So thank you

guys for letting me share this morning. It’s an honor and a privilege, a humbling experience. Because

prayer

is the outpouring of a thankful heart.

Prayer

is tuning our hearts to sing thy praise. That’s the one thing that Sam taught us. That’s who we are what we do. tune my heart to sing I pray. Thank you guys.

Thank you for this man of God,

the son of Edward Low. And Father we just ask that you would continue that his word would go forth which is your word, Lord, and he would continue to be a blessing to us. Lord, continue to bless you Lord, thank you so much for today in this beautiful message in Jesus name,

amen. Amen.

Thank you guys.

Thank you guys.

What’s Good About Good Friday?

What’s good about Good Friday? In England they named this day Good Friday because the greatest good was done on this day. For Jesus Christ who was without sin became the perfect sin sacrifice on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him. What’s good about Good Friday? On that day Jesus sealed our redemption through his sacrifice of innocent blood.

In John 12, Jesus began focusing on pouring his Word into the twelve disciples. He knew that even though they didn’t understand what he was teaching them, after the day of Pentecost when they received God’s Holy Spirit, then they would be able to perceive his words from a spiritual perspective.

After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the word of this miracle was spread throughout all Jerusalem. When he rode into town on a donkey, signifying his kingly position, the crowds honored him by placing palm branches in the way and shouting, “Hosanna, Blessed is the king of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.”

Lazarus’ sister Mary annointed Jesus’ feet with precious ointment. This signified that he would die and she was symbolically preparing his body for burial.. The disciples would understand the significance of Marys’ anointing after Pentecost.

At the Lord’s Supper in the upper room, Jesus taught his disciples by example. He washed the disciples’ feet…. This was the job of the lowliest household slave. By this act, he taught his disciples that you must humble yourselves and serve one another with a heart filled with the love of God. Jesus said, “in this the world shall know that ye are my disciples…. that ye love one another.”

Jesus said to them, “I’m going to die and then I need to leave you. But when I leave, the Holy Spirit will come to comfort you.” He said in John 14, “let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God. Believe also in me. My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your hearts be troubled neither let it be afraid.”

In John 15, Jesus taught his disciples that he is the vine and they are the branches. If the branch abides in the vine, then the branch will bear much fruit.

In John 16 Jesus said, “when I leave, the Holy Spirit will come to you and teach you all things.” He said, “in this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.”

On the cross on Good Friday, Jesus paid the price for the sin that we inherited from Adam. The Apostle Paul said, “in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Our fallen sin nature that we inherited from Adam separates us from the righteousness of God. We are not sinners because we sin…. we sin because we were born sinners. To sin is the nature of man. Fallen man cannot approach the throne of a righteous God.

Our sin nature lusts after the things of this world… the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Lust is “over desire.” It is anything that we desire over the love of God. Sin makes me hide from God and his righteous truth. For he that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved. However, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

There are several listings of sin in the Bible. According to 1 Corinthians 6…. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10. Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Another list of sins is in 2 Timothy 3: 2-5, “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3. Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4. Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”

Why are so many sins listed but so little written about the solution to sin? According to 1 Peter 4:8, “And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity (the love of God) shall cover the multitude of sins.”

Even though we were dead in trespasses and sin, Jesus associated with sinners: prostitutes, tax collectors, con men, those whom the world judged unworthy. According to Romans 3, God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. After the list of sins in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 11 says, “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

Jesus trained his disciples to prepare them for what was coming. He understood that you cannot have a testimony without a test. Their faith would be tested through the dark days of his death and burial. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, God if there be any other way, let this cup (of the wrath of God, of suffering, and death) be taken away from me…. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. These verses in John do not give the answer to Jesus’ prayer. However, the Bible is its own best commentary. According to Hebrews 12, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

What’s good about Good Friday? On this day, Jesus paid the price for sin that separates us from a righteous God. On this day, Jesus said, “it is finished!” What was finished? Your redemption and mine…. For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through the completed payment of Jesus Christ’s innocent blood on our behalf.

Therefore, walk in the light as he is in the light and the blood Jesus Christ will cleanse us from all unrighteousness….

…That we may live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael

Pete McKenzie
All right. Okay, buddy, have a great trip. Anybody else got announcement?

being a Christian man wanna

Unknown Speaker
ride?

Pete McKenzie
Just Yo, Kava average ordinary life, this Christian life.

All you got to do is read the Sermon on the Mount feel like something’s different going on here. Jesus requires a lot of those who follow him. How many of you guys are watching that series on TV called chosen? Raise your hand. Rest, you guys are out of God’s will. I watched a lot of Jesus movies and they’ve been good and the 10 commandments was on the other day. And that’s always a great movie to watch. I’ve never seen anything though, that smooth me like the chosen. You can go to your phone and download an app called the chosen. And it’ll take you right there. And it’s totally free. I mean, you can donate if you want to, but is totally free to watch. They finished first season I think there were about eight episodes. And I think it’s moved me the most because I’ve read the story and taught on the paralytic that they dropped down through the roof because there’s too big a crowd and put him in front of Jesus. And Jesus said Your sins are forgiven and got him in trouble. And then he healed him to prove that he had the power and authority to forgive sin. But what moved me was watching Jesus, and then watching the people that he healed the lepers, casting the demon out of Mary, who was called Lilith as a prostitute and she was demon possessed. And he cast a demon out of her and just see the change in her life. And just say the woman at the well when he told her everything about her and she said you’re living with a man you’re not married to and you’ve had five husbands. Well, you’d have to know more than that. And he started naming her husbands. And to see her life change, she became giddy. She ran in the town when she was at the well because she didn’t want to hit the noon de hour because she didn’t want to be around the other women, they always spit on her and called her names and put her down. And after Jesus set her free, she ran into Samaritan town and told everybody what he had done and they came running out to see who the Messiah was and who this man was she was talking to because they all knew she was a different person. She’s not the same woman she’s been. And just to watch him and to see his spirit and his heart and his attitude. This guy does a wonderful job of portraying that and see how the disciples respond to each other. They were arguing over who’s the greatest and who ought to be in charge and who’s first and who’s the best. Kind of like you and I would be done. But the thing that really gets me every time is when I read the Sermon on the Mount. And I remember the night that I got set free. I remember the night that after being riddled with guilt and shame and not knowing what to do with sin in my life. And Lenten sin, just cause all the guilt and shame and then burden with that. Maybe you might remember that in your own life. And I remember the night when I came to Christ and I knew I was forgiven. And it changed me. It changed me so much as Susan came up to North Carolina to break up with me. Because all the shenanigans I pulled in college in the way that I lived, and I think she had decided that I’m not I’m not going any further with this guy. Because we were either going to get married or not. We’re at that point in our relationship. She came up to break up with me but my life was so different. I changed so much that God changed her heart and we got married five weeks later. God is a life changer. God is a forgiver Redeemer deliver. He comes to lift burdens, not give them when you read the Sermon on the Mount and and you read things like if you lust after a woman in your heart, you’ve committed adultery with her that’s a pretty high standard. If someone slaps you on one cheek turn the other. What sense does that make? He’ll just keep slapping you before someone forces you to go one mile volunteer to go to when you read that kind of stuff, you just go How can you make a book in the marketplace doing that? Praying for your enemies and blessing those who persecute you. What is this life in Christ all about? What has been his disciple? What is following him really mean? And how do we has it working out in your life today. And I want to talk last week, we talked about sin. And I hadn’t heard a good message on sand. So I thought I bet appreciate if I was gonna hear it.

And I’m an expert, so I knew what I was talking about. I don’t think I’ve ever preached anything I knew more about than that last week. But what sin leads to in for a believer is forgiveness. Now I want to talk today about how to get forgiveness and how to give it. See, there’s two kinds of people in my life one person that sins against me, and the other is a person i sin against. And the thing that I realized as I’ve gone along is it doesn’t bother me half as much or doesn’t hardly hardly bother me at all. When I sinned against you, it really bothers me when you sinned against me. That’s a bigger problem. It but I got a problem in both directions. I got a problems, sinning against people hurting them and going and then asking forgiveness. Then I got a problem, forgiving those who have sinned against me. So I have a problem asking for forgiveness, and I have a problem giving forgiveness. So I got to figure out how can I do both of those with joy and get it done? Bill gothard define a clear conscience is living a lie. So no one could put a finger June say you rang me. And you never made it? Right? I want you to think about for a second who you got in your life that could say that to you. You wronged me, and you never made it right. And we have all kinds of defenses against that. Well, they were wrong. I got a resentment bank over here and see, resentment. Banks are born out of rights that are being claimed in expectations that are not being met. rights and expectations. Building. I mean, Oswald Chambers said, Any fool can claim his rights. In any demon, I make sure he gets some. Think of the people that violated your rights. Well, I have a right to expect. And eggerichs wrote a book called respect, love and respect, and it’s about marriage. Men need respect and women need love.

And if you don’t get that respect, you get wounded, you get angered, you get upset. I’ve had guys say to me all the time, well, she doesn’t respect me. And I say you respectable. What are you doing? And how are you living with her in such a way that she would respect to? I got a feeling you’re not forgiving her for not respecting you. I got a feeling that it’s causing a distance between you and her. And then a wife will give me three pages of his sins. And I’m pretty sure 80 90% of That’s all right, he’s done it, he’s guilty. But after hearing her three pages of that, which takes quite a bit of time sometimes because I like to go into detail. I’ll say you know, I’m sure he’s guilty of 80 90% of that. But the thing I’m most concerned about is your heart toward him. How you respond toward him. The bitterness, the anger, the resentment that I’m hearing in your voice, and it’s coming from your heart. That’s the biggest problem. You make a big problem out of his sin and it is a big problem. And I can tell it’s separated you from him and him from you. But what you have to guard is your heart. guard your heart with all diligence because out of it spring all the issues of life. So we got a problem forgiving others and then we have a problem asking forgiveness. I remember Jerry Leachman in a retreat A number of years ago tell shared the difference and being pardoned for sin and be unjustified. Pardon Didn’t you probably seen the movies where you come up for Pardon? If you’re in prison and you and you’re been there for a number of years every now and then every year so they’ll bring you up for for the pardon for panel it decides where they’re going to pardon you and you’ve paid enough you’ve been rehabilitated your change your debts been paid, and so they’re gonna let you out. And when they do that they pardon you and you, they let you go. And so they release you from prison. But you’re still guilty. You still did the crime. And I think that the people that have to wear that crime and last the longest are child molesters. They never get out from under the label. yoke. They’re never they can they’re, they might even be pardoned. But they never get out of the label. There’s never a release from the guilt and the shame that culture puts on them. So there pardon but they’re still guilty. They’re still criminals. They’re still felons. They have it on their record. But when you’re justified, and God justifies and men pardon. When you’re justified, Jesus clears your record. It’s just as if you’ve never done sin before. His blood cleanses you of all sin. So the two have no record. I remember Jesus teaching me this lesson one time I was journaling and I was out in the desert and I was taken a week just to spend with God and have a habit when I do that if going over this list that somebody came up with, for pastors, to check their heart, take heart inside looks to look at your motives, your sins, your thoughts, to check every area of your life and just see why you’re doing with the Lord. Now remember, starting to write down some sin and and then later that afternoon, I wrote the same sin down and I said, I gotta confess something. He said, What? You know that stuff I was telling you about this morning, he said, What stuff? Well, you may watch stuff. I don’t want to have to go over it again. He said, I don’t remember that stuff. Did you confess your sin? Yes, I did. Did you ask me to forgive you for your sin? Yes, I did. Don’t you believe I did. Because when I forgive sin, I never remembered again, I put it behind me as far as the east is in the West. I don’t hold grudges and I don’t have resentment, banks. I love you, I forgiven you. Your record is clear, you’re justified. Just as if you never sinned. When I look at you, I don’t see all that sand you did this morning and yesterday and you’re gonna do the rest of the day. I choose not to see that. What I see is a righteous robes of Christ that your but you’re rode with. I see that when you stand before me at the gates at the judgment seat. We call it the pearly gates.

When you stand before me at judgment, you’re not going to answer for all that sin. You’re going to have the white robes of righteousness. You’re gonna have belief in Jesus Christ. If you believed in your heart, did you? Yes, I did. And you profess with your mouth? Have you professed with your mouth? Yes, I have that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. Have you done that? Yes, I have. Then you’re saved. You’re forgiven. It’s just like you never seen before. I don’t hold grudges. I don’t have resentment banks. You’re free. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Nobody’s ever set me free like that before. No one’s ever not held grudges. No one’s not just bringing up the past and reminded me of all my missteps and sin and shortcomings. Who could Who does that? I do. He said. That’s what I do. I’m good at it. I love to do it. Come to me are you are weary and heavy laden and I’ll give you rest. I’ll forgive you. I’ll release you. I’ll set you free. You know what our problem is. We won’t set ourselves free. We beat ourselves up. We send again and we send again and we think sand we do sin we act sin. We commit sin and we hold on to it. We may even ask for forgiveness, but we still hold on to it. We beat ourselves up I’m no good. I’m never gonna make it in here. Do we give the debt open the door to the devil? The blast fame God and just like he did with the you know why God doesn’t want you to eat from the tree of that knowledge of good and evil. He knows as soon as you do, you can be your own God, you’ll be like him. He’s a jealous guy. He’s jealous for his own glory. He’s jealous for his own power and authority.

So we bless him again. God and who God is, and what God does the character of God. Same thing with a man with the talents, the man that got one talent and buried it in the ground. And Jesus said, How where’s my talent? Where’s my prophet? He goes, Well, I knew you were a hard taskmaster who gathered? Well, you have not someone in retail you have not scattered. So I buried it in the ground. Here it is, You wicked servant. So you knew I was so wicked and hard taskmaster. That’s not who I am at all. You bought a lie of the devil. You believe the lie that I don’t forgive, and I don’t cleanse and I don’t make clean and deliver and set free. And you believe the lie. And you keep beating yourself. And you were afraid of me. Instead of run into me, you run away from me. And today you don’t have a prayer life if you don’t have a prayer life because you don’t believe God forgives. You don’t believe that God has set you free. You don’t believe he doesn’t have resentment banks, and he’s not keeping record on all your food. POS are your mistakes. All your cuss words are your thoughts of lust are your greed, all your selfishness, all your anger, we could go on and on we did that last week I’m tired. I would you probably are too. You’re never gonna live that life of more than a conqueror, you’re never going to be that that man of God that you could be in should be in that so desperately needed today if you don’t believe God forgives. But then there’s the issue of you forgiving. They say the Unforgiven heart is an unforgiving heart. If you never really had that moment in your life, where you sue or sit free, were you with that woman at the well. And he told you everything about yourself and you knew he was the Messiah. And he forgave that and you became giddy and excited and changed and different and happy. If you’ve never had that moment in your life, where you realize you’re not gonna have to stand before the judgment seat and be a goat. When he separating the sheep’s and the goat, and you’ve been forgiven your claim, you’re forgiven your righteous, and his eyes. If you’ve never had that moment, then you’re gonna have a hard time helping others have that moment. You’re gonna have a hard time forgiving that person that wounds you and hurt you. Maybe it was your dad. Maybe he was an absentee dad, he wasn’t there much. Or maybe he was there. But he was still absentee that he didn’t engage with you. He didn’t talk with you. He wasn’t there to build your character. He wasn’t there to help you. He didn’t play ball with you. He didn’t come to your games. He mistreated your mom. Maybe you got a wound against him? Most men do, unfortunately. And some of our children have wounds toward us is that. And we need to make it right if that’s the case. But see, I can’t make it right. If I haven’t been to the Beatitudes. That’s where the Sermon on the Mount starts with bless it or the poor in spirit. It all starts with humility. You can’t forgive if you haven’t been forgiven, and you’ll be forgiven. You have to humble yourself. blesses the poor in spirit. Bless those who are repenting and mourning over their sin. Those are the forgiven people.

Unknown Speaker
I don’t

Pete McKenzie
understand how all I know about that. But a few weeks ago, when God gave me Jeremiah 24, seven, I will put it in your heart to know me. God puts it in a man’s heart to know Him and to know Him we have to humble ourselves. If my people will humble themselves. That’s where you started in Second Chronicles 714. If my people will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways you don’t turn from your wicked ways if you hadn’t started with humbling yourself and praying and not seeking his hands in what he can do for you, but seek in his face in his forgiveness and his

Unknown Speaker
love.

Pete McKenzie
Then you get to that place where you can turn from your wicked ways. And then when you turn from your wicked ways, and you’ve done all that then he says I will hear from heaven. I’m not going to do it before those things happen. We pray for revival but we won’t come to the process of forgiveness. The ngunnawal forgive your sins, and now heal your land, your marriage, your bodies, all those things you need healed. But it starts with humility and mourning and repentance and brokenness before God. Which I look back on my sinners prayer. God I know I’m not the man you want me to be. I’m a terrible Christian. I’m failed at everything and keeping the rules. I didn’t know Never heard of the Beatitudes at the time. Or maybe I’d heard them and didn’t understand them. And if you’d asked me what’s the Beatitudes, I couldn’t tell you. But I was going through the process. I was going through the process of the important. poor in spirit, I was destitute in spirit. I tried living the Christian life, I couldn’t do it. God lets us do that to show us we can’t do it. He gave us a 10 commandments to show us we couldn’t keep them. A fallen nature a sinful guy cannot keep the rules. Oh, he can keep them some of the time, little of the time a few times. But he can’t consistently live a rule keeping life. No matter how hard he tries. We have fallen nature some better than others at it. The Pharisees were just took it to a doctrinal level of keeping all that they made two or 300 and fair, Seiko laws, he had to keep all of them not just the 10 commandments. And they were righteous in themselves. And Jesus called them the scum of the earth. Why did separators inside their dead man’s bones? He called them snakes, john the baptist did. You put loads on man shoulders that you won’t even carry yourself? He called them hypocrites. Jesus doesn’t have a lot of patience with that. All the people that you ever read about in the Bible and ever saw depicted in movies, he doesn’t have a lot of patience with Pharisees, with hypocrites of those who think they’re righteous in themselves, they compare themselves to others and think that they’re better. And they’re good. They want first place at all the banquets, they wear robes and uniforms. Show that they’re leaders and better than you and hire the new and have authority over you. You know how the Gentiles lord it over those under them. But it’s not so among you. you humble yourself. And when you come to know Jesus, and you’re truly forgiven, you don’t have to work at that. Because you came to know Him because you humble you. You were broken you, you he invited you to come Are you weary and heavy laden and you came and I’ll give you risk. You don’t have to strive anymore and be anxious anymore and struggle anymore. You don’t have to work so hard to get me to love you and approve you and accept you. I do already do. Quit trying to get on my good side. You’re already on it. Yeah, but you’re still on it. Yeah, but no, but you’re still on it. I still love you. I’m never going to forsake you. I’m never going to leave you I’m never going to disavow you. I’ve made vows to you and promises to you. And I’m going to keep my promises Will you keep yours which ones you’re talking about? I’m talking about not the guy you didn’t forgive, I’m talking about the person that sinned against you. They hurt you. They wanted you you got it dated, you got it marked, it’s in your resentment bank, but you’ve never forgiven them. Oh, you’ve gone through the motions of forgiving them. But when you get in their presence away, you know that you haven’t forgiven them. It’s when you get in their presence or see them, you feel awkward, you feel uncomfortable. You don’t want to make eye contact. If you see them in a crowded place you avoid them. Even at church it’s a terrible thing to have to go to church and avoid some people because they’ve hurt you and never made it right or you’ve hurt them and you know they have a grudge against you. It’s even worse when it’s in your own home. Even worse, when it’s your wife or your children. And as men of God, we have to make things right. We have to ask forgiveness and give forgiveness. We have to do it as a lifestyle. We have to be free, you cannot be free. If you’re not asking and giving forgiveness. You’ll never be free and it’ll hurt your witness. It’ll hurt your self esteem your Christ esteem your Christian a stain.

You give the devil ammunition to accuse you and rob you of your joy of your confidence in Christ. It’ll keep your prayers from being answered. And basically, it’ll make you useless and worthless in the war effort that we’re in. That’s what he’s good at doing. That’s what the devil is good at doing. neutralize me and marginalize them. Not just in culture where they’re dishonored and the disrespected in culture. You white supreme issue. You Christian, you. You call yourself a Christian and you listen to that You have a judge you have an advocate, the Holy Spirit who’s come and ministers to your heart and nudges you and coaxes you to ask forgiveness. Start with God. Is God forgiving? You guys come to me sometimes and they’re confessing their sin and talking about their issues. essay, did you forgive that person? Yes. Did you forgive yourself? That’s a hard question. Have you forgiven yourself? Because if you won’t forgive yourself, you’re saying Jesus, his death on the cross one enough. I have to be righteous in myself, I have to be perfect. I have to be holy, I have to accomplish my own salvation. And his death wasn’t enough. So if you’re gonna go around, beating yourself up and feeling guilty all the time and being unforgiving of yourself, not to mention others. You may not even be saved. He may not have the real disease. He may not have been ever forgiven in your own heart. The unforgiving heart is an unforgiving heart. I think the Scripture tells us to examine yourself. See if you’re truly in the faith. Because there’s a lot of people I’m telling you right now, there’s a lot of people out there that do not know Jesus Christ, but they claim him. They say they follow Him, they go to church, they may even go to Bible study, they may go to retreats and conferences, but they’ve never surrendered to the point of being willing and able to forgive others, the way that they’ve been forgiven. And Jesus made it this serious at the end, the Matthew six when he was teaching, if you pray, pray like this Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. On Earth is it even heaven forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And then one verse later, he said, For if you don’t forgive those who, who hurt you, then I won’t forgive you. And I’ll never forget reading that I went cry. I mean, I gotta go forgive them. If I don’t forgive them. You’re saying you won’t forgive me? He said, That’s exactly right. He didn’t mess around with this stuff, is not small potatoes to him. He died, he had his son down the cross for us to be forgiven, and we won’t forgive. He takes offense at that. And I think we need to examine ourselves and see if we’re truly in the faith. Because if you’re having a hard time, if you’re unwilling to forgive, yeah, but you don’t know what they did to me, you don’t know what you did to Christ.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a message like this. And you may never hear another one like this. But this is most important message you ever heard. This is something that you can’t mess around with this, some you have to get right. This is something you have to be doing and not just for you. God’s a jealous God and you know what he’s jealous of your joy, your peace, your happiness, your freedom. He wants you to have it he died that you could have that. Nice jealous for you to have that. And he knows every time you get to a grudge and you got resentment and anger and bitterness. Start with your wife and your children. Start there. And then go from there. Take a heart inside, look at your heart. Get in the habit of doing that. Make sure things are right with God make sure that your conscience is clear the best you can do. That means that you’ve done everything you can do to clear your contents. Now you may go and ask forgiveness you may be thinking as someone you’ve wronged and hadn’t made it right, and you may go and ask for forgiveness and maybe they don’t have the grace in themselves to forgive you. That’s not your problem. Your job is to go and ask in sincerely meaning if you ever heard these athletes that get up and say they’re sorry, and you know they’re not. You can tell just by the way they say it, their body language, their tone of voice, their expression on their face. They’re doing a call some agent told them to get up and do that. But they’re not doing it heartfelt they’re not but when someone gives a heartfelt confession, I was wrong. Which is what we have to do with God. We have to get on his side against ourselves. I agree with you god that that sin it’ll break fellowship with you if I don’t confess it and repent and ask for you to help me not do it again. Would you forgive me? David did that in Psalm 51 be gracious to me. Oh God, according to your loving kindness according to the greatness of your compassion, blot out my transgressions for my sin has ever been before me. It’s you and you alone that I’ve sinned against. So when you’re gonna ask forgiveness, name your sin. I forced myself home Bathsheba killed her husband. My son is ever before me. And God forgave him. But he never had peace in his home again. He may go and ask forgiveness and they won’t forgive you. That’s a burden. But you’ve done your job. If you do it, then do it sincerely. But don’t go do it until you’re sincerely broken about it. You wish you hadn’t done it? Yes, they deserve it. Yes, they deserve your anger, your bitterness, your shunning them, whatever it is you’re doing to make them pay for what they did. And you’re the big one. So as I forgave and set, the prisoner free only defined the prisoner was me.

So I don’t know what kind of guy you walked in here. But I want you to walk out a different guy. I want you to go out there and give them heaven. And to give them Heaven, you have to have it yourself to give away You can’t give them something you don’t have. And to have heaven in your heart and joy in your heart and peace in your heart and freedom in your heart. To have that. You’ve got to get it from the Lord. You’ve got to get it from your own confession to your own homeland yourself and seek in his face and turn from your wicked ways. And when you have it, you can’t help but give it away. You give it away to everybody did you come in contact with you give it to the gal on the freeway, he doesn’t deserve it. You give it to your wife, she might not deserve it. It wouldn’t be grace if she deserved it. God gave you grace, he forgives us by grace, we’re saved by grace through faith. Not of ourselves. It’s a gift of God not a result of work. So no man can brag and boast about it. So would you come to me, if you’re weary and heavy laden, if you’re not wearing heavy laden, if you’re going to stand on your rights and your expectations, if you’re going to stand on the fact that they’re guilty, they really hurt and wounded you. The Holy Spirit is gonna withdraw from you. You wonder where you went. And maybe you never had him in the first place. But you did have him and now you’ve hardened your heart because you’ve been hurt and wounded. It’s not about you. We have to live our lives knowing that it’s not about us. I’m not offended that I forgive you. You have my absolution. So you’re quick to forgive when you’ve been forgiven. Just don’t do it again. Couldn’t have planned that better. Thanks for being a part of the deal. God, God’s getting a laugh out of this too. He loves it. God wants to laugh with us. God wants to have fellowship with us. God wants to be joyful with us. God wants to have a good time with us. That’s who he is. That’s what he does. But to get from here to there, we have to do some things. To enjoy his fellowship, we have to do things that he said do and that one of them is asking forgiveness and receiving it and giving it when we need to. And then we have then he says enter into the joy of your Lord. You have my peace. And Dewar, you will hang in there. You will. Because you have a god that’s hanging in there with you and he’s already done it for you. We just need to do our part. We do our part. He’ll do his part. You know what he’ll do his part even if we don’t do our part. That’s the kind of God we have. That’s kind of savior we have in Jesus Christ. He’s worthy of everything we’ll give him and we give him our heart. It’s not so hard to ask forgiveness when you humbled yourself before God and received it. It’s not hard. It’s not hard to receive forgiveness and walk in newness of life. Did you come in here guilty and ashamed and feel a little beat up because of your sin and your shortcomings. You can take care of that. And the second it doesn’t take a half day or a week. You can do it right now. You can just say God that he’s preaching. Even follow me around. He’s preaching that message right to me. I have the I hear a guy say that all the time. So you don’t have to say it today.

God’s calling you to himself. In between here and there we have take care of some business. Take care of it in your heart first. And just ask forgiveness and receive it from him. Let him cleanse you with the blood that he shed on the cross, to forgive that sin, that hardness of heart, that unforgiving heart, that callous thing. Get it right with Him. And then he’ll help you get it right with others. Whether you need to forgive them or need to be forgiven, he’ll, he’ll make that a joy. You can’t wait to get to. And then you’ll be given them heaven. You’ll be given them grace and grace changes people. I gave it to Susan and she wanted to marry me Go figure. She told me about our mundo. And I didn’t get mad I didn’t get angry. I’ve been forgiven. I’ve been freed up. I could give grace and it changed her heart. It’ll change people’s hearts when you start forgiving and giving grace and living that life. So I’m going to give us 30 seconds it won’t take any more than that. 30 seconds for you to do whatever you need to do with the Lord right now. Let’s don’t miss an opportunity to do that. And then we’ll close.

If you confess your sin, I’ll be faithful and righteous to forgive your sin and cleanse you of our unrighteousness not some unrighteousness

Unknown Speaker
what a God,

Pete McKenzie
what a Savior. And Lord, we worship you today. Nobody has a god like our God. No one has a savior like Jesus. And we thank you for Him with all our heart in Jesus name And all God’s men said give them heaven guys.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Worthy

Is it worth it to dedicate my life to Christ? What in this life is worthy? What is really valuable? Jesus set an example of what is really worthwhile in this life with which God has blessed us.

When Mary washed Jesus’ feet with precious ointment, Judas Iscariot questioned if this was a good use of this valuable perfume. Then Jesus rebuked him…. implying that there is nothing really worthy but to humble yourselves in my service, he said that Mary was preparing Jesus body ointment signifying his death and burial. The disciples didn’t understand the value of Jesus’ death on our behalf.

In God’s economy, the wages of sin is death. We’re all dead in trespasses and sins, subject to the worldly lusts that we inherited from Adam’s fallen nature. However in God’s economy, Jesus Christ, because of his great love wherewith he loved us exchanged his innocent life in exchange for our guilty lives. As the perfect atoning sacrifice for sin on our behalf, he who was without sin became sin for us that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him.

In John 14, Jesus said to his disciples, “I go to prepare a place for you. For where I am there you will be also. Thomas said, How can we know the way? They didn’t yet understand the things of the spirit…. they could not yet see from a spiritual perspective for they had not yet received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus explained to Thomas, You don’t know the way. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the father except by me.

Peter said, Lord even though the world will forsake you, I’ll never forsake you. Jesus said, before the cock crows twice you shall deny me thrice. Peter had to learn a difficult lesson that in his own strength he was powerless against the darkness of this world.

Why did Jesus sacrifice himself on the cross? What shall wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. I’m not a sinner because I sin…. I sin because I’m a sinner. Sin is the nature that was born in my flesh. As the Apostle Paul said, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. I’m forgiven from sin not because of my goodness, but because God’s goodness grace and mercy. “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. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:16-17)

Even while we were dead in trespasses and sins, he who was without sin paid my debt of sin with his innocent righteous blood shed on my behalf.

My sin causes me to be fearful, timid instead of fearless and bold. The descriptors in 2 Timothy 3:2-5 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 describe my sin nature. The nature of sin is in pride and self-sufficiency…to glory in myself. However, despite my sinful nature, 1 Corinthians 6:10 confirms that “where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more:” “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

Romans 7 says, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this dead body? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
Romans 8 continues, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

What’s good about good Friday? The greatest good was done on that day. For he who was without sin became the perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him. The grace of God is amazing grace. In that while we were dead in trespasses and sins, Christ died for the ungodly.

The devil and his minions will do anything to get rid of the truth of God and Jesus Christ, his word made manifest. On the day that Jesus was crucified, the devil thought he had cancelled God’s plan of redemption. However, what men and the devil meant for evil, God meant for good. On Good Friday, Jesus paid the price to ransom all who were held in captivity to sin and death.

What’s good about Good Friday? At the cross, Jesus led captivity captive… he cancelled the sin which cancelled the devil’s right to enslave us in sin and death. What shall wash away my sin? What shall make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. O blessed is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What is our life worth? Our Father has redeemed us and purchased us with the precious payment of his son’s innocent blood. “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s….”

…that we may ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael