The Apostles’ References to the Pre-existent Son

The revelation of the Son, that God had a Son with Him in heaven from the beginning of creation, is the heart of the New Testament.  The Son was unknown to anyone in heaven or earth before God sent His Son into the world.  The apostles must have been astonished to learn that the Son had existed with God all that time.  How many Old Testament scriptures were made new to them by that knowledge, for they read them with eyes that have been opened by the Spirit!  Below are all the places in the New Testament where the apostles proclaimed that exciting truth.  If you notice any verses that I may have overlooked, please let me know.

An integral part of that amazing revelation is that God had created all things through the Son whom He had kept hidden with Him in heaven.  Amazingly, the apostles mentioned that truth  in only three verses in the entire New Testament.  I have underlined those three places in the verses below.

 

John 1

¶1. In the beginning, the Word was there, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2. He was in the beginning with God.

3. All things were created through him, and without him was nothing created that was created.

1John 1

1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld, and our hands touched: the Word of life.

2. And the life was revealed, and we saw it, and we are bearing witness and showing you the eternal life which was with the Father and was revealed to us.

Philippians 2

5. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus,

6. who, although existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped after.

7. Instead, he emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave, made in the likeness of men.

Colossians 1

13. [God] delivered us from the domain of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His beloved Son,

. . . .

15. who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature,

16. for by him were all things created, things in the heavens and things on earth, things visible and things invisible; whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities, all things were created through him and for him,

17. and he is before all things, and all things are held together by him.

18. He is also the head of the body, the Assembly of God; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that in everything, he might be preeminent,

Ephesians 3

8. To me, the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach among the Gentiles the incomprehensible richness of Christ

9. and to enlighten all men as to what is the plan of the mystery that has been hidden from the Aeons by the God who created all things through Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 1

1. After God spoke in many and various ways to the fathers in olden times by the prophets, He spoke to us in these last days by a Son,

2. whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.

. . . .

8a. To the Son He said, 

. . . . 

10. “You, Lord, in the beginning, laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands.”

Revelation 3

14. “And to the messenger of the Assembly in Laodicea, write: The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, says these things.

It Was God's Will, Not His

    When we were translating the Psalms, we came across the following verse, which surprised us.  It is the hidden Son of God talking to the Father before the Father sent him to earth:

Psalm 74

19. Oh, do not put the life of your turtledove into a creature, a creature among your afflicted people!  Do not ever forget!

We were amazed to learn that the Son of God did not want to come to this wicked world and be one of us, and suffer death.  This verse reminded me of the scene in the garden of Gethsemene, when Jesus was pouring out his heart to the Father, pleading with Him not to ask him go to the cross:

Mark 14

32. And they went to a place by the name of Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go pray.”

33. And then he took with him Peter, and James, and John, and he began to feel overwhelmed and distressed.

34. And he said to them, “My soul is grieved to the point of death.  Stay here and watch.”

35. Then, going on a little farther, he fell to the ground and began to pray that, if it were possible, the hour would pass from him.

36. And he said, “Abba (that is, Father)!  All things are possible with you.  Take this cup away from me!  But not what I will, but what you will.”

(Luke 22:43–44: Then an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him.  And being in anguish, he began praying even more fervently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.)

37. And then he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you sleeping?  Weren’t you able to watch for one hour?

38. Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.  The spirit is certainly willing, but the flesh is weak.”

39. And again, he went away and prayed, saying the same thing.

40. And when he returned, he discovered them sleeping again, for their eyes were heavy, and they did not know what to answer him.

41. And he came a third time, and said to them, “Sleeping on, and getting your rest.  That is enough; the hour has come.  Behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

42. Get up.  Let’s go.  Behold, the one who betrayed me is near.”

Jesus did not want to be tortured by the Romans and then go through the agony of the cross.  What sane person would want to?  But his Father gave him the strength to go through with it, and so, he resigned himself to do it.  Jesus much preferred his Father’s will to his own.  What love and devotion!

That is how it was before the Son came to earth.  His will was very much not to come.  But his love for his Father and his desire to please Him brought him to the place that he could resignedly say when he left his happy, heavenly home: “Behold, I go to do your will, O God” (Heb. 10:7).

Jesus showed us his Father’s love for us.  My song, “The Love My Father You”, tells about it:

It’s not a love that comes and goes,

passing by the heart like wind.

It’s not a love that never grows,

or weakens like the strength of men.

It’s not a subtle game I play;

The way I love you has to show.

My Father loves you just that way

and sent me here so you would know.

My Father loved me, and I knew

His love was meant not just for me,

but that He wanted me to come

and give my life to make you free.

The pain made me cry,

and all I had to see me through

was the love I felt inside,

the love my Father had for you.

“By This” in 1John

When reading through John’s first epistle, I was intrigued by a phrase repeatedly used by John.  It was, “by this, we know”, or “by this,” such-and-such is known.  So, I made a list of the twelve times John said we know something “by this”.  Here they are:

1. Who Knows God?

1John 2:3. By this, we know that we have come to know him: if we keep his commandments.

1John 2:4–5. He who says, “I know him,” and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, the love of God truly is perfected in him.  By this, we know that we are in him.

Lesson: Every person who knows God obeys Him.

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2. Who Loves God and His Children?

1John 5:2. By this, we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.

1John 3:10. By this, the children of God and the children of the Accuser are distinguished: everyone who is not doing righteousness is not of God, as well as the one who does not love his brother.

Lesson: Every person who loves God and His children obeys Him.

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3. Who Showed Us What Love Is?

1John 4:9. By this was the love of God made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, that we might live through him.

1John 3:16. By this, we have come to know love, in that he laid down his life for us; and so, we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

Lesson: Jesus showed us what love is by suffering and dying for us.

Paul explained this when he wrote, “Rarely will someone die for a righteous man, though for a good man, one might possibly bring himself to die, but God commends to us His kind of love, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:7–8).

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4. How Do We know We Love People as Christ Loved Us?

1John 3:18–19. My children, let us not love in word or with the tongue, but in deed and in truth.  And by this, we know that we are of the truth, and we will assure our hearts before Him.

1John 4:16b–17a. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this, love has been perfected among us.

Lesson: We love as Christ loves when we put love into practice.

Jesus told his disciples, “I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, so you also must love one another” (Jn. 13:34–35).  But they could not obey that commandment until the kind of love Jesus had was given to them at Pentecost, as Paul said, “The love of God is poured out within our hearts by the holy Spirit which is given to us” (Rom. 5:5).

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5. How Are We Perfected in the Love of God?

1John 4:16b–17a. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this, love has been perfected among us.

Lesson: We are perfected in God’s love by abiding in it.

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6. How Do We know that Christ Is Still Living in Us, and We in Him?

1John 4:12b–13. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.  By this, we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

1John 3:24b. By this, we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit that He gave us.

Lesson: The Spirit tells us if we are walking in love and if God is living in us.

Paul told the saints at Philippi that if they were in any way failing to walk in the perfect way of Christ, then God (through the Spirit) would let them know (Phil. 3:15).

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7. How Do We know That We Have Received the Spirit of God?

1John 4:2. By this, the Spirit of God is known: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ when he has come into a person is of God.

Lesson: The Spirit of God confesses Christ every time

he enters into someone’s heart.

Jesus described this experience to Nicodemus when he said that the Spirit of God would always make a sound when someone receives it (Jn. 3:1–8).  The disciples experienced this on the day of Pentecost, when they received the Spirit and it spoke in tongues through them (Acts 2:1–4).

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8. How Do We know Who Is of God and Who Is Not?

1John 4:6. We are of God.  He who knows God listens to us; he who is not of God does not listen to us.  By this, we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Lesson: Those who are of God believe and obey what John

and the other apostles taught.

The children of God who have gone astray may still be God’s children, but they are no longer “of God” if they no longer will listen to what the apostles taught.

Free To Be You

As he was saying these things, a certain woman in the crowd lifted up her voice and said to him,

“Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts which you nursed!”

Luke 11:27

Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world.”

Therefore the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness of yourself; your witness is not true!”

Jesus answered them, “Even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true.

I am one who bears witness of myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness of me.”

Then they began to say to him, “Where is your father?”

Jesus answered, “You don’t know me or my Father; if you had known me,

you would have known my Father, too.”

Then they said, “Who are you?”

And Jesus said to them, “Even what I said to you from the beginning.”

John 8, excerpts

Sometimes, such as during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ preaching was so astonishing that his disciples were spellbound, unable to speak.  Most other times, however, his followers felt perfectly free to interrupt Jesus with questions or comments.  That tells us that Jesus made people feel relaxed and engaged, for he was down-to-earth and personable; he participated in no staged events.

Jesus was also interrupted at times by his enemies, which means they were not intimidated by him.  This was God’s doing, not theirs.  God did not want anyone in Israel to be intimidated by their Messiah, and to this end, He gave Jesus a body that was unattractive and gifted him with no stylish form.  Isaiah said, “He will have no form or majesty, and when we see him, there will be no beauty that we should desire him” (Isa. 53:2b).  Consequently, “He was despised and rejected by men, . . . and we did not value him” (Isa. 53:4).

If anyone loved Jesus, it was not for his looks or smooth style.  It was because of what they felt when they were around him.  And if anyone spurned Jesus, or forsook him, it was for the same reason: his unpretentious righteousness made them feel something they did not want to feel.  Jesus was the same Jesus everywhere he went, the Jesus that God had made him, but human reactions to him differed.  For some souls, Jesus was easy to love, and for others, he was easy to hate, and it all depended on the condition of their hearts.

God designed it that way.  He is a wise God, and in His wisdom, He set everyone in Israel, both sinner and saint, completely free to be themselves.  And He still does.

You Don’t Have To

Do not marvel that I told you that you must be born again.

John 3:7

Sometimes, people are told that they must be born again, but that is not the complete truth.  When Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again,” what he meant was, “If you want to be saved, you must be born again.”  That is the complete truth.  If you don’t want to be saved, you do not have to be born again.

Earlier in his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus had told him the complete truth: “Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  So, if you want to enter into eternal life and see the kingdom of God, you must be born again.  If you don’t want to live forever, you are free to refuse the new birth and live a wicked life; nobody can stop you.  It is your privilege from God to refuse His Son and die in your sins.  You are perfectly free to choose to go to hell.

Never Blinded

“If our gospel be hidden, it is hidden by those who are being lost,

through whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unfaithful.”

2Corinthians 4:3–4a

There were false prophets among the [Old Testament] people,

just as there will be false teachers among you, . . . 

and many will follow them.”

2Peter 2:1a, 2a

“False messiahs and false prophets will rise,

and they will . . . . mislead, if it were possible, even the elect.”

Matthew 24:24

From the above scriptures, the wise receive two important truths.

The first truth is that Peter’s prophecy was true, that there are false teachers among God’s children who have large followings, just as happened in the Old Testament.  Many ancient Israelites are in hell now because they rejected the true prophets God sent to them, but the above scriptures tell us that they rejected them because they believed the false prophets who claimed to speak for God, but did not.  They were turned away from the truth by false prophets!  This was a grief to God and to the prophets He truly sent.  God lamented, “I did not send these prophets, but they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied” (Jer. 23:21).  And Jeremiah, seeing God’s people following false prophets, cried out, “My heart within me is broken because of the prophets!” (Jer. 23:9).

The second truth is that no matter how persuasive false teachers are, it is not possible for them to persuade the pure in heart to follow them, just as Jesus said.  That promise lets us know that if we follow after the Spirit and keep our conscience clear, God will always be there to help us sense what is right and what is wrong.  He promised through Isaiah, “Your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’ (Isa. 30:21a).

In trusting that precious promise, we can more easily obey Jesus’ command to be anxious about nothing (Mt. 6:25–32).  Our heavenly Father does not want us to spend our lives worrying about whether or not we will be deceived.  It is better to focus on loving Him and doing His will.  If we do that, we will never be blinded by false teachers, for Jesus will be there, protecting our hearts from men who know how to look and sound good, but who are not.  Keeping a clear conscience, we will hear, in even the most confusing times, God’s “still, small voice” whispering in our ear, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Out of Ur, into the Unknown

“The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your land [Ur of the Chaldeans],

and from your kindred, and from your father’s house

 to the land that I will show you.”

Genesis 12:1

“By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obediently went out,

not knowing where he was going.”

Hebrews 11:8

“Hear me, you who pursue righteousness, who seek the Lord!

Look to the rock from which you have been hewn,

and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug!

Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you,

for I called him alone, and I blessed him and multiplied him.”

Isaiah 51:1–2

God calls all His people of out of Ur of the Chaldeans, so to speak, and all who are like father Abraham respond to God’s call without knowing where they are going.  All that Abraham knew, in the beginning, was that God had called him to leave his homeland and to follow Him.  Likewise, all that Abraham’s children know, in the beginning, is that God is calling.  And knowing that is all they need to know, in the beginning.

For us, to leave Ur means to cease trusting in the earthly things with which we are familiar and to trust God to be our hope, our Protecter, and our Avenger.  Every sincere child of God has felt that sweet, desperate need for God’s guidance, but not one of us knew, in the beginning, where that guidance would take us.  We only know what we felt.  That wonderful feeling was God’s call to leave the world and follow Him into a spiritual place about which we, at first, knew nothing.

Coming to the Border

No one who cries out for the knowledge of God possesses what he is asking for; otherwise, he would have no need to ask for it.  And many have prayed for the knowledge of God but have been unable to embrace it when God answered their prayer.  A brother named Jimmy once testified that one day, years before, he was down on his knees pleading with God for grace to truly know Him and serve Him, a voice spoke to him and said, “Many have come this far and turned back.”  Jimmy wasn’t exactly sure what the Lord meant.  But he knew that he had reached the border of a spiritual place unknown to him, and that many others had prayed themselves to that same border but were unwilling to cross it with Jesus into the unknown.

If you have been praying to know God more perfectly, you have been praying for something you do not yet have.  Prepare your heart for God’s answer.  Jesus told us to seek, for God will always let us find, but Jesus did not say we would like what we find.  He told us to knock, for God will always open the door, but Jesus did not say that we would walk through the door that God opens.  He told us to ask, for God will always give, but Jesus did not say that we would accept the gift that is given.  Many have sought, knocked, and asked, and God has always responded, but just a few have the faith of Abraham to leave their own Ur of the Chaldeans, the things of earth with which they are familiar, and go with Jesus to places they have not known.

With all their asking, the wise also ask for faith to believe God’s answers, whatever they may be.  For they understand that God can surprise and even frighten us with His astonishing truth.

Wasted Years?

“I will restore to you the years that the locusts ate,

my great army that I sent against you, 

and you will eat in plenty and be filled,

and you will praise the name of the Lord your God

who dealt wondrously with you.

My people shall never be disappointed.”

Joel 2:25–26

The locusts that ate up Israel’s crops were sent by God to punish Israel for her many sins.  That is why God called those locusts His “great army”.  But then God spoke of a day when He would heal her land and bless her so much that it would make up for the years of her being cursed.  In other words, because Israel learned from her error to obey God, her years of being apart from God had not been wasted after all!  God’s abundant mercy transformed even them into part of her blessed life.

Sometimes we look back at our past with regret for what we consider to be wasted years.  But those years are not wasted if we learned from them to obey God.  The very fact that we can see the foolishness of those years means that our eyes have been opened by God to see them as He saw them then.  It means we have grown!  No time is wasted that brings us, one way or another, closer to God.  We make even the years of our rebellion against God valuable when we get the point.  For those who are in Christ, there is no such thing as a wasted year.  He gives us a new past, a past of perfect victory from the beginning of time, a past which taught us the fear and the love of God!

God used Abraham’s lie about Sarah being his sister to bless him and increase his wealth.  The time Abraham spent alone and miserable because of his lie was not wasted time because his loneliness drove him closer to God.  As a result, God turned Abraham’s lie into an investment that paid great dividends.  My father once was dying of cancer because of disobedience, he told us, but he repented and was healed.  Was the time of his suffering with cancer wasted time?  He didn’t think so; he thanked God for it and often referred to “that blessed cancer”, for through that ordeal, he learned to fear and love God better.

Nothing in your old past need ever burden you if Jesus has given you a new one.  He used whatever you went through to get you to him – and using those things, he succeeded!  Every soul who gets the gold from their old past ends up thanking God for all of it.  Every trial is an opportunity, and every failure is merely a stepping stone for those who come to Jesus.

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This blog is so good. It’s tough sometimes when I think back on the times of my teenage years that I was away from the saints and the precious things Jesus was doing in peoples lives at that time, and to remember the foolishness of my youth. I remember my thinking at that time and how I thought I was wanting to do my own thing, but really, I was just running from God. I had to learn a lot of things the hard way. BUT, when Jesus started tugging on my heart, and I began to humble myself to his call, my life changed, my attitude changed, everything changed.  (I was 26 by then.)  Then I started seeing and feeling the remorse of the things I had done and missed. As time went on, it would be heavy on me the more I learned and felt in the Spirit. I would pray and ask Jesus for help and relief often. One night in a meeting, the Spirit was blessing us all, and in the middle of that, I heard “I have restored what the canker worm has eaten”. Shew! That went straight down to my heart. I knew from that moment on, everything that was happening with me in Jesus was new and not repentance from the past. What a sweet feeling that was!

Then, a few years later, after that relief, I would ask Jesus why I went the places I did, like why was it so bad the way I acted and some of the places I ended up in my life. I read a blog you wrote on “The losers are the winners” written for Uncle Joe. When I read it, I just cried and cried. It put me under conviction. I got still and read it over and over again. At the end of it, I heard the Spirit say to me the answer to my question of why it was the way it was. The answer was so tender: “Because I wanted you” 💛 That put an end to the wondering and the feeling so bad about things.  It allowed me to be happy and understand. Now I say, I’m so sorry I was that way Lord, but thank you for rescuing me! And he put a joy down in my heart that is everlasting!

When I read the GCC stories, and read parts of him feeling the feelings of things he had done wrong in his past, he said they made him go to God instead of going away from Him. That really pricked my heart. And I have tried to implement that in my own journey with Jesus. Sometimes I “need a little help from my friends” but I’m so thankful that I have a love in my heart for the truth and life Jesus has given me. The love of the truth and what Jesus has done for me has saved me thus far.

So, I agree that my years are not wasted. I have learned so much through my mistakes. And Jesus gave me what I needed to see those things for what the are, the love of God for me. I do wish I would have taken the higher road many times, that’s the best way, but I needed to learn who I was in order to be who I am. 🙌🏻

Shew, that brings tears to my eyes. I love this life, and I love you all who Jesus has put around me.

Amy B

Receiving God’s Life

“Who will ascend to the hill of the Lord,

and who will stand in His holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart,

who has not received my life in vain.”

Psalm 24:3–4a

“The Spirit is life.”

Romans 8:10

There is such a thing as receiving the Spirit, God’s life, and then losing your soul.  We must continue in holiness to obtain eternal life.  Being born again is wonderful, but Jesus said that “he who endures to the end, the same shall be saved” (Mt. 24:13.  For “we are made partakers with Christ if we hold fast our first confidence firm until the end” (Heb. 3:14), that is, if we “believe to the saving of the soul” (Heb. 10:39).

There is such a thing as becoming a believer, and then, through disobedience, have it be in vain.  Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “I remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I proclaimed to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are being saved if you are holding fast that message which I preached to you; otherwise, you believed in vain” (1Cor. 15:1–2).  Of a believer who does not hold fast to the gospel, Jesus said that in the Final Judgment he will cut him off “and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites.  In that place, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” (Mt. 24:51).

We must receive God’s life, His Spirit, in order to have any hope of salvation.  And what a precious hope that is!  But we receive His life in vain if we are disobedient after receiving it.  That is why the man of God said that the resurrected Jesus “became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Heb. 5:9).

May God grant us the grace to receive His life and then fulfill our purpose.  Let us rejoice in the truth and bear good fruit to God!

From the Darkness

“Behold, the wicked are bending a bow!  They have fitted their arrow

to the string to shoot from darkness at the upright in heart!”

Psalm 11:2

“He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

John 8:12b

Faithful children of God are open and sincere because they love righteousness and desire fellowship with others in the kingdom of God. They know that “if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1Jn. 1:7). This is the kind of life to which God calls all His children.  Even in the Old Testament, the prophets called upon the Israelites to live this way.  Isaiah cried out, “O house of Jacob!  Come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord!”  

Unfaithful children of God, however, drift toward secretiveness, and if they do not return to openness and sincerity, in time, they will be shooting barbed words from the darkness at those who are upright.  And because they are in spiritual darkness, they do not realize the spiritual condition into which they have fallen.  David said that “the wicked do not know; neither do they understand; they walk about in darkness” (Ps. 82:4–5).  And Solomon explained that “the way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know at what they stumble” (Prov. 4:19).

This is a very valuable lesson to learn because if we learn it, we might catch ourselves if we ever wander off the right path, and repent.  Preacher Clark did that.  When he was young in the Lord, he met a brother one day that he had gossiped about, and he felt ashamed.  He could hardly look him in the eye.  And he made up his mind from that moment on, he would never say anything to anyone about another child of God that he would not say in his presence.  In other words, he would never again shoot from the darkness at anyone.

Communion with God through Dead Things?

“He cuts down trees of a forest.  He plants a fir,

and rain makes it grow.

He warms himself.  Yea, he makes a fire and bakes bread.

But then, he makes a god and worships;

he makes it a graven image and bows down to it.

Half of it, he burns up in a fire. 

Over that half, he cooks a roast, eats meat and is filled.

Moreover, he is warmed and says,

‘Ah!  I am warm.  I see the firelight.’

And the rest of it, he makes a god, his graven image.

He bows down to it and worships,

and prays to it, saying, ‘Save me!

For you are my god!’

They do not know, nor do they understand,

for He has besmeared their eyes

so that they cannot see, and their hearts,

so they cannot understand.

Yea, no one takes it to his heart,

nor has the knowledge or understanding to think,

‘Half of it, I burn up in a fire, and on its coals I also bake bread,

roast flesh, and then eat, and with the rest of it,

I make an abomination, that I might bow down to a block of wood.’

Communing with God through ashes‽

A deceived heart has led him astray, for it will not save his soul.”

Isaiah 44:14–20

We might say the same thing about water.  Christians drink some of it, and with the rest, they wash their sins away.  Or fabric.  With some fabric they make blue jeans, and with some of it they weave holy garments.  Or wafers.  Some wafers they eat with peanut butter, and with other wafers they commune with God.  Some light candles on a birthday cake, and others they light as prayers for dead people.

Communion with God through water and fabric?  Communion with God through wafers and candles?  Is there no knowledge of God anywhere?  How can a man commune with the living God through dead things?

We have communion with God only through the Spirit of life, which Jesus died for us to have.

Being Cruel

“By the word of your lips have I avoided the paths of cruelty.”

Psalm 17:4

There is never a justification for us to be malicious and cruel.  Some people think it is OK to be cruel to people who are wrong, but others being wrong is no excuse for cruelty.  Simeon and Levi justified their barbaric cruelty to the inhabitants of Shechem because their sister had been mistreated, but their father Jacob cursed them because of it (Gen. 49:5–7).  They learned the truth of Solomon’s admonition to his son: “A merciful man does good to his own soul, but a cruel man troubles his own flesh” (Prov. 11:17).

Besides that, what if the person you think is wrong is not wrong?  Men justified their injustice and cruelty against Jesus because they thought he was wrong.  But even though Jesus knew his enemies were wrong, he did not retaliate with cruelty against them.  Peter said, “Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his footsteps, who committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth; who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return, and when suffering, did not threaten, but committed himself to the One who judges justly” (1Pet. 2:21–23).  And so, as Peter went on to say, “Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in well-doing, as to a faithful Creator.”  So, if someone has been cruel toward you, trust God and be patient.  He will be your avenger in due time.

In this world, if you are an upright person, you will suffer for it, and increasingly so as this world drifts deeper and deeper into darkness.  Be prepared.  Do not retaliate in kind, but “turn the other cheek” as Jesus said to do.  Peter wrote in another place, “Since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin” (1Pet. 4:1).  You can consider the abuse of sinners against you as evidence that you have ceased from sin, and that is a good thing.  Paul taught the same thing: “All who are willing to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2Tim. 3:12).

Are you willing to live a godly life before men?  If so, then you will suffer their abuse.  But that’s OK because “if we persevere, we will also reign with him” (2Tim. 2:12).  And remember, no matter how wrong we think someone else is, it is never right for us to be cruel to them.  We overcome evil with good, not with more evil.

What Our Blessings and Gifts Are For

“You said to Jehovah, ‘You are my Lord!  

My goodness is not for you,

but for saints who are on the earth,

for them and the rulers of all those in whom is my delight.’”

Psalm 16:2–3

The Son of God here was confessing to his Father that the great power that his Father had given him was meant to benefit those on earth who loved God, not God Himself.  There is nothing anyone in heaven or on earth can do to make God healthier, holier, or richer than He is.  And the same can be said of the Son, whom God has exalted above heaven itself (Eph. 4:10) and has made “most blessed forever” (Ps. 21:6).

No matter how good or great anyone is, there is nothing that any creature can do to make Jesus healthier, holier, or richer.  No gift or blessing we receive is intended to help us make Jesus greater in any way; all the good things we have received from our heavenly Father are for the blessing of our brothers and sisters on earth.

The only way you can bless Jesus is to bless one of God’s other children, for Jesus said, “As often as you do it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me” (Mt. 25:40).  We cannot bless Jesus himself; but we can make him happy by blessing those on earth that he loves.  I like what my father once lovingly said to his little flock: “I want to give Jesus a hug, but he’s not here; so, until he returns, I’m going to take it out on you!”  That’s how to bless Jesus!

Every one of us have good things from God, but are His children, Jesus’ brothers and sisters, being blessed by your good things?  If so, you are blessing the Father and the Son the only way you can.