Assurance

Assurance

John 10:  7  So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (Observation) Jesus is the door to the pasture. The “pasture” is abundant life. The sheep know Him. There is no one else that the sheep know. (Interpretation) I suggest to you that the sheep in the pen are those who are waiting for their “shepherd,” the promised Messiah. Further, I suggest to you that the sheep will know Jesus when he calls because they were predestined by God to be saved “and go out and find pasture,” in other words, eternal life in Heaven with Jesus. Jesus explains further in John 10 below that there are “other sheep” who also are destined to hear His voice, that is the Gentiles, who will join “the fold” when they hear the good news about Jesus and believe it. (Cross-reference) Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the...
Trying to Please God

Trying to Please God

“…even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. And yet I was shown mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.” 1Timothy 1:13 Paul said of those who crucified Christ, “None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”1 He again said, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent.”2 When a man stands before God and argues that he is innocent because of ignorance, he will face three hurdles he must jump: First, he must be ready to defend before God that he had a legitimate excuse why he did not know. Second, he has to defend what he did in light of the Golden Rule. Third, when under authority he is commanded to treat people different from how he wishes to be treated, he must evaluate whether the authority under which he finds himself is egregiously violating what God expects of him. For example, if you are a soldier under authority who is told to kill a traitor who has not been found guilty by an official trial, would you do it? It may be that seeking the will of God results in doing wrong, simply because we cannot know the motives of others, as illustrated by soldiers drafted into the army to fight a battle started by the ruler. It is easy to use people in our endeavor to accomplish our objectives. All of this is a minefield that is exceedingly difficult to cross without getting hurt. The conscientious follower of Christ...