A Benefit of Salvation: Asking & Receiving

"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." John 15:7

Hallelujah, there are so many different areas that we can praise our Father concerning this Truth! As I was praying about what He wanted us to study, He told me that the real power of this verse is with our relationship with Him. More specifically, the fact that we have direct access and ability through Jesus to go to our Father with anything and everything! "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing." John 15:4-5

Our Father is the Creator of everything, there is no power that is greater than He is, and He has allowed us to have direct access to Him. OUr Father has given us the ability through faith Authored by Jesus to ask Him for whatever we will! Our Father the Creator of it all has said that He will give us whatever we ask for, and all we have to do is to abide in Him and have His Word abide in us. This isn’t a benefit of salvation that is reserved for just a select few of us either; it’s for each and every believer, because every believer has the Word abiding within Him. This isn’t a hard Truth to live either, “For My yoke is easy, and My burden light.” Matthew 11:30 Jesus is the Word, John 1:14, and every one of us been called and chosen has Jesus abiding within him. “And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, as we are One: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfect in one, and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.” John 17:22-23 It is impossible for us to accept Jesus and make Him the Lord of our lives, and then choose to not have Him abiding within us. If we choose to live apart from Christ then we aren’t saved! The two go hand in hand! Salvation is unity and oneness with God through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!

The Bible teaches us that Jesus is the firstborn among many brethren. “For those whom He foreknew [of whom He was aware and loved beforehand], He also destined from the beginning [foreordained them] to be molded into the image of His Son [and share inwardly His likeness], that He might become the firstborn among many brethren.” Romans 8:9 (Amplified Bible) The reason that our Father sent Jesus was not just to save us, but so that we could be made like Him, that’s the fullness of His salvation! Our Father just didn’t provide a way for us to escape an eternity in Hell, an eternity separated from Him; He provided a way through the power of His Anointing, which is Christ, for us to actually be like Him! That’s what our Father has always wanted and desired for us to be. God created us in His image, and Jesus came so that we might be! Jesus is the greatest, there is none greater, He is the Alpha and the Omega, He is our Head, He is our Savior, and these Truths of Who He is, does not for one second limit us from being like Him!

It does not demean Jesus for us to live in the fullness and completeness of His salvation! Jesus came so that we could be like Him. Jesus came so that we could have direct access to God, as He has direct access to God. Jesus came so that our Father would be able to do the works through us, that He did through Him, and yes even greater ones! The power of God within man has been perfected by the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior! John 14:12. Jesus came so that we could ask of our Father for everything and receive, as He asked everything of God and received! Too many of us try to elevate Jesus by degrading ourselves. That is basically just placing the focus on us and not on God. That’s not how Jesus says we are to elevate and praise God. Jesus said that we elevate our Father and bring praise to Him by being used to produce much fruit. “Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples.” John 15:8 Man apart from God can do nothing, however man with God can do everything, Mark 10:27.

One of the best examples that I have ever found in the Bible of how our Father is concerning us asking Him for things can be found when Jesus began His ministry. “And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto Him, they have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever He saith unto you do it.” John 2:3-5 Jesus proclaimed that He only spoke what He was commanded of God to speak, John 12:49. So what He said to Mary was of God, and Jesus said that it wasn’t yet His time! So what did Mary do? She went right ahead and persisted. And Jesus without rebuking her, began His public ministry. How great is that? Mary asked our Father what she willed and God did it, even though He had at first said no! For those of us that have kids, we know exactly why God did what He did for her.

I hope you see this Truth that our Father is not inaccessible. God’s provided a way for us to be one with Him, exactly like Jesus is one with Him. Jesus asked our Father for everything. He spoke only what God had told Him to speak and Jesus gave God the glory and honor for everything that happened. Jesus had a 100% success ratio with God! He did because He was one with God, and because of Jesus, we too can have a 100% success ratio, because through Jesus, we too are one with God. Our strength does not lie within our own abilities to serve our Father; they lie within Jesus’ ability to serve God by serving us. He ever lives to intercede for us and that is why we are saved to the uttermost! We are not alone, Jesus is our Head, He is the Vine and we are the branches, and He is our Shepherd, leading us in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake!

What’s really powerful about asking and receiving is our will, “ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.” I mean think about it, Jesus said this, so it’s an absolute Truth, but is it an attainable Truth for us? Most of the Christians I talk with question whether their will and God’s will are actually the same? They believe that we may get it right once in a while, but how can we be sure? I hear it said all of the time that God will not take our free will from us, but is that Truth? Ask yourself these two questions, can we have God’s will 100% of the time, and if we are saved, are we permitted to retain our own will that is contrary to His? Let’s turn to the Word and see the Truth, and the Truth will set us free!

“Not with eye service, as men pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” Ephesians 6:6 Doing the will of God comes from the heart! So it’s with our hearts that we do the will of God! That’s cool! What does God say about our hearts? “A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them.” Ezekiel 36:26-27 Wow!

Our Father takes care of our will. He does it by giving us a new heart and He gives us a new spirit, and He places His Spirit within us, so that we can do what? So that we can do His will! A-men, we are not alone! Our Father is right here in us, with us, leading us, providing the necessary components, and strengthening us to do His will in everything. We can ask and receive because our Father has given us a heart and a spirit that can ask His will, and He doesn’t stop there, He put Himself within us to finish the job completely! God never says that there is a benefit or a requirement that is from Him, that He doesn’t fully empower us with Himself to obtain or to fulfill!

I have heard people say that our Father will not take away our free will; He does to! God takes away, yes and A-men, He takes away our sinful free will. Look at Ezekiel 36:26. Our Father said that He would take away our stony hearts, our hearts of dead works, dead wills, and dead desires, and we thank you Father that You do! Our Father said that He would cause us to walk in what is right and righteous, and we praise You Father that You do! If it were up to us, we would keep it, and then we would not be able to ask and receive. But God loves us so much that He put a new heart and a new spirit within us that only wants His will and we can ask away; because we have Him within us a 100% of the time and with God there is a 100% success ratio!

Now don’t get me wrong, can we ask amiss, yes, James 4:3. But hear me out; faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God. The reality of so many believers is this: that we are just humans, bound to mess up, we have this free will which is contrary to God’s will and that’s just the way it is. So even though Jesus said ask what ye will, the chances of us living that way are slim to none! They believe that with a lot of hard work and self-determination that maybe once and a while we can get it right, but never all of the time like Jesus did. But the Bible says that our Father's yoke is easy, and the Bible says that God gave us a spirit and a heart that can. The Bible says that our Father did take away our will that was contrary to His, and Jesus said ask and receive! This is the great victory of our salvation, nothing is ever left to chance, and everything is left up to God!

We have studied that our Father wants us prosperous with abundance, having all of our desires and all of our needs fulfilled through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Through His Love, by His presence, and with His Word, God has provided a way for us to be as Jesus is. We now have seen that God has faith and boldness in us, because He knows absolutely that Christ dwells within us, and He knows far better than you and I the power of our unity with Him. Our Father knows the heart and the spirit that He gave us; He knows their power that allows us to walk in His will. Our Father can say that we can have whatsoever we ask, because He has given our will to us, and it’s no longer our will but His will. Old things have passed away for us and all things have become new, including our will! And our Father's will for us is an abundant life. His will is Health, His will is Peace, His will is Joy, His will is Wisdom, Miraculous, Forgiving, Kind, Gentle, and Powerful! These are the attributes of the heart we have been given by God and out of the abundance of our hearts, our mouths will ask!

Do not shy away from this power or be intimidated by it. It’s God, it’s all Him, we only can because of Him! We have been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible. We have been given the Holy Ghost to teach us all things. Our Father has faith in His salvation and in our unity with Christ, and so should we. Its God Who said these things are true, so walk in boldness and have faith in the power of our salvation, God does!

A Benefit Of Salvation: Our Needs Are Met Abundantly

"But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” Psalm 23:5

“And they all did eat, and were filled, and they took up the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children” Matthew 14:20-21

When our Father meets our needs, He does it according to His riches and according to His glory. The standard that our Father meets our needs by is so far beyond anything that this world has to offer; God’s minimum is superabundant to man’s abundance. When our Father fills our cup it runs over, and when He feeds us He starts with nothing and then when He is done there are baskets full left over. our Father is a God of superabundance! Our needs are met with far more provision than ever is required. The Truth is our Father wants us to lack in nothing. Consider Heaven for a moment. Heaven is a perfect place, love, faith, and hope abound, no sickness, no fear, streets of gold, mansions, abundance, everlasting life, and power, everything is met abundantly! In Heaven God’s power shines so brightly that they don’t even need the Sun, God’s glory lights up the place! Now let me ask you a question, is God a respecter of persons? Does He favor one person above another? No! Acts 10:34

"Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons."

So if in Heaven people have all their needs met, spiritually, soulfully, and physically, why wouldn't we have the same here on earth? It is the same God providing the abundance in Heaven as it is here on the earth. Does our Father respect them more than us? Haven't we read and studied that now is the day of our salvation? According to God, we don’t have to wait to be saved, so we don’t have to wait for our needs to be abundantly met!

You may say that Brad, "there are no people in Heaven, at least not in human bodies." If you believe that there are only spirits there now, shouldn’t our spirits be as abundantly supplied as theirs? But there are more than just spirits in Heaven; there are bodies. I was preaching once and as I spoke our Father began to speak to me. It was amazing; Words flowed from me, yet I was totally in another conversation with God. our Father asked me the very same questions, "Am I a respecter of persons? I said, no. He then asked me about Heaven, is there sickness? Is there hunger? Is there lack? Is there fear? Is there a lack of understanding? Do people get killed? Do people owe money? All of these questions I answered no to. Then our Father said if my children do not have lack in Heaven, and I am not a respecter of persons, than there should be no lack on the earth for My children! I shouted I see it and A-men, and never skipped a beat in my other sermon, and until I said what had happened no one knew what was going on.

God allowed me to taste just a little fraction of what He is like and capable of. He talks to millions of us all at once, in individual conversations, and never skips a beat. our Father had John write in 1 John 4:17 that as He is so are we in this world. I didn’t do anything to do this, it was our Father within me that was allowing me to preach and have a conversation with Him at the same time. I was really just along for the ride. But He showed me that this is how we all can live 100% of the time. Think of all of the millions of dollars that are spent on preachers traveling, then think of how our Father is? Our Father is more than capable of allowing us to talk to each other as He does, without ever leaving where we are. If man can make a phone that can conference call, or video conference, God can allow us to talk through our spirits!

Now back to people being in Heaven, there are people, just like us with physical bodies. The Bible speaks of at least two of them, Enoch and Elijah. The Bible teaches that neither tasted death, but both were delivered to Heaven. Scriptural proof: Hebrews 11:5 "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death;" and 2 Kings 2:11 "..there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into Heaven." Now Enoch and Elijah are not in fear, they do not have sickness, they do not have lack, and they are in Heaven. Our Father showed me this during that sermon and it was so exciting. God sees our needs as being so far above what we see them as. We tend to think as a need as being the bare minimum; God sees it as abundance!

“Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not life more than meat, and the body more than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies in the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of them.” Matthew 6:25-29 Jesus tells us to take no thought for our physical needs; food, clothing, or our lives, which are all definitely needs we have while on the earth, and Jesus teaches us to take no thought for them! Jesus teaches this because He knows, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that our needs are now met according to God’s riches and glory! So; “Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith.” Matthew 6:30

How many sermons have you heard that teach us how to pray or act to get something, a new home, a car, clothes for the kids, a spouse, a job, more money, or whatever else we need? I have heard hundreds of them; whole ministries are out there devoted to preaching nothing but that kind of stuff. Well, Jesus said to take no thought for these things, it’s kind of hard to reconcile the two isn’t it? God teaches us to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and all of these things will be given to us, and they will be given to us according to His riches! “But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all of these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33 Our Father knows what we need and He doesn’t slouch in meeting our needs! If you are concerned with your needs, don’t be like the unsaved and worry about them, and focus on them, seek first God’s Kingdom, and all of your needs will be met. “(For after all of these things do the Gentiles seek;) for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.” Matthew 6:32

Our Father knows that we need all of these things to live, and He teaches us to seek Him first and seek His righteousness and all of it will be added unto us. Our Father is not mocked, whatsoever He has promised, He will do! Our Father is not a man that He should lie, so if He said that we are not to take thought, He meant, take no thought! Now that goes against what most of us have heard and it definitely goes against society, but remember that our Father has given us a new heart and He has placed His Spirit within us to cause us to walk in His Truth’s. Jesus’ yoke is easy to be born, this Truth is in us, and we are more than capable through the power of Christ that strengthens us to live without taking any thought for our own lives! We are far better than flowers and we are far better than birds! Look at the birds, they get to fly south every winter, they don’t have to hang out in the snow and cold! Our Father is a God of abundance!

Think about our Father for a second? Is He taking thought for His own life? We never read that He is; yet we read that He is always taking thought for ours! His Spirit now abides within us, we are born of Him, born of His incorruptible seed, and Jesus is now the One giving us everything needed to live, just as a branch receives everything needed to live by the vine! We are now alive because our Father has birthed us and He now lives within us. So we will resemble Him, taking no thought for our own lives, yet ever living to help others. Jesus ever lives to intercede for us, and we are now one with Him, so we too ever live to intercede for others! Jesus’ needs are being met in abundance and our needs are met by the same abundance! Our Father loves us, just as He loves Jesus. Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God. This needs to be preached, we need to encourage each other with it daily, our needs have been met according to the same riches and glory that Jesus’ needs have been met! Since they are we can have peace and joy as we take no thought for our own lives, we have been given the mind of Christ, it’s how He has made us! Jesus came that we might have an abundant life, and our abundance is measured with the same level of abundance as Jesus’ is!

A Benefit of Salvation: Being Given the Desires of Our Hearts

"Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." Mark 11:24

"Delight thyself also in the Lord: and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." Psalm 37:4

When we love Jesus, our Father will give us whatsoever things we desire. Hallelujah! Now stop and read that out loud again, what things soever, (that’s in red, Jesus said it) that we desire, when we pray we are to believe that we will receive from our Father and we shall have them! Remember that faith believes that God is and that He is a rewarded of those who diligently seek Him! Also remember that we have our faith Authored and Finished by Jesus Himself. We are empowered with the strength of Christ to believe that God is willing and able to perform what He has spoken! We are powerful, able, and willing through the Anointing of our Father to delight ourselves in the Lord and He will give us the desires of our hearts! That’s just good stuff! That’s the Truth of God and the Truth of God sets us free!

You ever hear someone say that our Father will only provide our needs, not our wants. I have heard that so many times and I just shout for joy, because I know that our Father is not just a provider of our needs, He goes right on over to our wants and desires. He is a God of abundance and great mercies. He is a Father Who wants His offspring to greatly prosper in every area of our lives: Spirit, Soul, and Body! Our Father sent the best He had, Jesus, so that we could have it all through Him. Jesus paid a high price for you and I.

Our being blessed isn't dependent upon our ability to understand all that Jesus has done for us and it doesn’t matter whether we feel worthy enough to receive it. Our Father's Truth is His Truth and Jesus said whatsoever things we desire! We don’t look to ourselves for this faith. Man on his own has no ability to accept and believe this, we look unto Jesus for the needed faith to live and walk in this awesome Truth.

"Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith; Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the God." Hebrews 12:2

We have Jesus living within us to lead us in the paths of righteousness and we have Jesus within us to Author and Finish whatever faith is needed to realize and to live in the fullness of our Father's Truths!

When we hear such verses the first thing that satan will do is attempt to make us question our motives. I have shared these verses before and have had people ask me, "you mean I can desire for someone to be killed and God will do it?" I always marvel at such bizarre responses. When we hear such foolishness, we should immediately ask the person if they would like to be saved? When our Father leads us in studying these types of verses we should get excited. Because the Holy Spirit has caused the desire of our hearts to be to please our Father, to walk in the fullness of His wisdom, to walk in the power of His Spirit, to witness His truths, to provide for our families, to love and provide for our enemies, to allow Him to use us to heal the sick, to comfort the hurting, and to give specific prophesies to edify and grow the church. When we hear these scriptures our first thought, or any thought, is never to do harm to someone or to commit a despicable act, our thoughts are to allow our Father to work mightily through us. These are the desires of our hearts, because our Father has given us new hearts, when we called and chosen to believe in Him, Ezekiel 36:26.

“For who has known or understood the mind (the counsels and purposes) of the Lord so as to guides and instruct Him and give Him knowledge? But we have the mind of Christ (the Messiah) and do hold the thoughts (feelings and purposes) of His heart.” 1 Corinthians 2:16 Amplified Bible.

People who have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to accept Jesus as the Lord of their lives and who are saved, hold the thoughts and purposes of Christ in our Anointed minds. The thoughts and purposes of the minds that we now have, believe for what our Father desires and we want and hope for what our Father wants. We are born again, we can’t help it, we are born from God’s Incorruptible Seed, the old things of our lives are passed away and behold all things are become new unto us! We now have Jesus Authoring and Finishing our faith, and believe me, we can’t go and ask our Father for anything and actually believe we can have it without Jesus being the One within us, telling us to ask for it! And Jesus isn’t going to ask for something that is contrary to God’s thoughts, intents, and purposes. So we may have full peace and joy in allowing Jesus to empower us to not only ask God for whatsoever things we desire, but we also are able to delight in asking!

“If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples.” John 15:7-8 Do you see why our Father has said that we are able to delight in asking? Because when we bear much fruit it glorifies our Father. Jesus fully allowed God to produce much fruit through Him and so should we. How could we do anything less, Jesus now Authors our faith. His Word now abides within us and we now abide in Him, so don’t you think that if all of these things are true, we would look and act like Jesus?

If someone’s first response is a negative one, that’s all right, it will clearly show us that the person hearing the Truth needs to hear it. This person may be in church, they may go to church more then we ever will. They may even be in a position of leadership within a church. But if the response given by an individual when these scriptures are shared with them is to commit a sinful act, we will know where their heart is. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak. “Either make the tree good, and his fruit is good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil of his treasure bringeth forth evil things.” Matthew 12:33-35

Remember this fact, we did not write these Truth’s, our Father did. God also wrote them in such a way that it would take faith to hear and to accept them. "And the disciples came and said unto Him, why speakest Thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath." Matthew 13:10-12

What Jesus is saying here is that those of us who are truly saved have the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost shall give us the needed understanding and we shall grow. Jesus also shows us that those who are not saved, even though they hear, will not understand. Remember in John 14:26, Jesus said that He was sending the Holy Ghost to act on His behalf. The Disciples had Jesus right there with them and we now have the Holy Ghost right here living permanently within us. Which according to Jesus is a great and powerful thing, a thing to be desired and cherished!. "However, I am telling you nothing but the Truth when I say it is profitable (good, expedient, advantageous) for you that I go away. Because if I do not go away, the Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Advocate, Intercessor, Strengthener, Standby) will not come unto you [into close fellowship with you]; but if I go away, I will send Him to you [to be in close fellowship with you]." John 16:7 Amplified

If someone wishes to disagree with God’s Word, they are disagreeing with God, not us. It’s just for us to share our Father's Word with the world; God keeps the responsibility for Himself to make His Word grow. Remember too, that all who hear God's Word may not prosper because of it.

"Listen to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches it from his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who receives the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the Word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the Word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among thorns is the man who hears the Word, but the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the Word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown." Matthew 13:18-23 NIV

Even though all may not prosper, it is our desire and our prayer that all will. God's Word does not fall void to the earth. The Anointing of Christ within us loves those who disagree with our Father and it empowers us to pray for them, and to intercede for them. If they won’t listen to us, pray that our Father sends someone who they will listen to. Think about our Father and how He acts, how many prophets did He send in the Old Testament, how many times has He forgiven us, and does He ever change, does His Word ever change? That’s what we are born of and that is Who is alive within us!

Jesus taught us to ask for whatsoever things we desire, and He told us that by receiving and producing much fruit through our asking, actually glorifies our Father. This is God’s will for our lives. He wants to provide for us and He wants to give us more than just our needs, He wants to give us our wants. The Lord is our Shepherd; we shall not want, Psalm 23:1. He gave us the Holy Ghost to empower us and He gave us Jesus to Author and Finish our faith. Our Father gave us a new heart that will allow us to walk in His will, and He gave us the mind of Christ. Our Father will never leave us or forsake us, and He has allowed us to actually be one with Him through Jesus our Lord and our Savior. Now let me ask you this again, if all of these verses are true, don’t you think we will resemble Jesus, Who is the Word of God manifested in the flesh? Jesus asked and received and you can’t tell me that asking for water to be turned into wine was a need, that was definitely a want! “Not with eye service, as men pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;” Ephesians 6:6 It’s God’s will for our wants as well as our needs to be realized through Him!

Rejoice this day, because today is the day of salvation, and today our Father will give us the desires of our hearts because we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to delight ourselves in Him! Love those who love you. Love those who hate you. Love those in authority. Pray for the governments of this world and our leaders. Allow the Love you were born from to consume you. You are the child of God, and God is Love, so you are Love. Delight yourself in Love and you will be given the desires of your heart!

God Is Not A Man That He Should Lie

“That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:” Hebrews 6:18

“In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;” Titus 1:2

“God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?” Numbers 23:19

It is impossible for our Father to lie! God cannot lie and God is not a man that He should lie! And what our Father has spoken, He shall make it good! With these Truths in mind, let’s study some of the things that God has spoken.

“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” Romans 8:26 The Spirit of God is praying for us right now! The Holy Spirit is praying so earnestly for you and I that what He is praying for cannot be uttered with words! Our Father is for us and nothing can be against us. God is helping us right now, even if we have no idea what to pray for! It is impossible for God to lie about this! Our needs are met by our Father's grace and our lack of knowledge or maturity in no way limits His abilities to give us life and give it abundantly!

“Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.” Hebrews 7:25 Our Father has spoken that He is able to save us to the uttermost and He will make good on it! Praise God our salvation is an abundant thing!

“And ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.” John 8:32 Our Father has given us the Holy Spirit to dwell within us to make good on this Truth, and we are free because of it! “But the Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, Standby), the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name [in My place, to represent Me and act on My behalf], He will teach you all things. And He will cause you to recall (will remind you of, bring to your remembrance) everything I have told you.” John 14:26 Amplified Bible Today is the day of our salvation and today the Truth has set us free!

"And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory forever and ever. A-men." 2 Timothy 4:18 Our Father is not a respecter of persons and He will make good on His promise and He will deliver each one of us from every, every mind you, evil work and He will preserve us unto His Heavenly Kingdom!

"Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." Ephesians 3:20 Our Father cannot lie about this, so He will do exceeding abundant works through us. Works that are extremely above all that we ask for or think of! Stop here for a moment and think of what we have just studied that God will make good on: we are saved to the uttermost, He will teach us all things, we are delivered from every evil work, He will do exceedingly abundant works through us, and the Holy Spirit is praying for us with words that cannot be uttered! And remember, God is not a man that He should lie!

“And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, ever as We are One.” John 17:22 Jesus wasn’t just talking here. Every Word that He spoke is Truth and Jesus gave us His glory so that we could be one with God just as He is One with God! Being saved to the uttermost means being saved just as Jesus is saved!

“For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:10-11 Our Father is not a man, He is not a con-artist, He is not greedy of filthy lucre, that He should lie and God has told us to consider ourselves to be dead unto sin, just like Jesus is dead unto sin! And our Father has told us to consider ourselves to be alive unto Him, just as Jesus is alive unto Him! This is an easy burden and a pleasant yoke to be borne, because greater is He that is in us, than He that is in the world and Jesus is Authoring and Finishing our faith to believe it!

"Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for Thy sake we are killed all the day long; for we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." Romans 8:33-37 There is now no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus and nothing shall ever separate us from the love that our Father and Jesus have for us! And Hallelujah, our Father did not lie about the Truth that we are more than conquerors through Him! Because He is more than a conqueror through us this day!

"But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:" Ephesians 2:4-5

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever." 1 Peter 1:23

“Looking unto Jesus the Authorer 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.” Hebrews 12:2 Our Father has spoken that Jesus will Author and Finish our faith, so He will make good on this Truth in each and every one of our lives! And faith as small as a grain of mustard seed will blow a mountain into the sea! Jesus is God and He said that even the smallest amount of faith would do super miraculous things and He cannot lie about it! If we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to believe that Jesus has been raised up and is now seated at the Right Hand of the Father, we also have been empowered to believe that Jesus is Authoring our faith. So we are able to believe that we may be more than conquerors over everything that would try to come against us! Through Christ we are more than conquerors over fear, doubt, lack, sickness, the devil, unforgiveness, sin, and anything else that is contrary to God’s glorious will of our abundant lives!

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:20 The Anointing of our Father is now alive within us, ever living to intercede for us so that we are saved to the uttermost!

“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” 3 John 1:2 Our Father desires for us to be prosperous and healthy and He has not lied about the Truth that He will cause His wishes to come to pass in our lives! God will do superabundantly, exceedingly above all that we ask or think and He will do it by His power that is at work within us! So our health and prosperity should be massive! Through Christ we will prosper in our spirits, souls, and bodies far above and exceedingly beyond anything we can ever think of or ever dare to ask for! God is not a man that He should lie!

Here are just 22 scriptures that our Father, Who is God, is not able to lie about! Think of all the others that He has spoken. Go find any scripture in the Bible and then praise God that He didn’t lie about it! Praise Him that He will cause it to come to pass in our lives! And thank Him that He will do superabundantly above all that we can even think of regarding it! Look up verses that talk about us being pure even as He is pure. Find verses that speak of us being holy, sanctified, perfect, and mature. Find verses that speak of love, faith, and hope and then thank God that He is causing them to come to pass in our lives and that His Spirit is right now praying for them to be realized in our lives with unspeakable utterances! We are saved to the uttermost and today is the day of our salvation!

A Benefit of Salvation: Whatsoever We Do Prospers

"And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf shall never wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Psalm 1:3

Whatsoever, don't you just love that word, whatsoever, it leaves nothing out does it? If we have been chosen by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to make Jesus our Lord, we will prosper, plain and simple! Our Father is not a man that He should lie and God said whatsoever. We will prosper in our walk with the Lord, we will prosper in our marriage, in our health, with our kids, with relationships, in love, in faith, in hope, in ministering the Gospel, in our jobs, with our schoolwork, sports, whatsoever we do will prosper! Plain and simple this is a Truth of God that will set us free! The Holy Spirit will cause us to come to Jesus as little children and teach us the simplicity of our Father, and through faith Authored and Finished by Jesus, we need to dare to allow Him to empower us to fully accept and believe whatsoever today! This isn’t a hard thing to do; Jesus’ yoke is easy to be borne and it’s pleasant. It’s not hard for us to prosper at everything we do because our Father prospers in everything He does, and that is what has been born into us. We are our Fathers’ children; the Seed that we are born again of is God’s Incorruptible Seed. We can only be what we have been born from! We may not be as mature as we can be, but it’s in us and we are not alone in growing up. Our Father is right here in us insuring that we do!

People struggle with this Truth; I know that we do. We think we have not earned such an overwhelming blessing as to prosper at everything we do. But look at what Romans 2:4 has to say about God's goodness "..the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." God uses enriching our lives in everything that we do to lead us in becoming all that we can be in Him. "And in that day ye shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will give it unto you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." John 16:23-24 Ask and receive so that your joy may be full, isn't that great, full joy! No partially with God, He has all and He will freely give us all.

The Lord is Sovereign, and our Father can do whatever He wants. Absolutely He can, God can do anything and He does everything and they all prosper, and our Sovereign Father has said that He and His Word are one. God, Who is Sovereign, has said that He never changes, and the Sovereign God has said that whatsoever we do will prosper and that we can ask for whatsoever we will and we will receive it, so that our joy may be full! Man typically does not trust himself with such power. However, we are not alone anymore, we no longer stand as one or act on our own behalf, it is God within us Who now does the works. "I am the Vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing." John 15:5

We think that it cannot be this good, that this is just not the way life is. The truth is, we could never earn it and we could never pray enough, witness enough, do anything enough to warrant the mercies and favors of God. He knows that, yet He still said whatsoever. Our Father put no qualifying statements before or after His proclamation of whatsoever. He just threw it out there and through faith authored and finished by Jesus we have it. "He staggered not at the promises of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded, that what He had promised, He was also able to perform." Romans 4:20-21

Our Father is so good and merciful towards us, and our salvation is so complete, that we do not even have to worry about having the needed faith to believe His statements. Look at Hebrews 12:2 "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the God." Our Father loves us so much that He will even produce the faith in our lives to accept what He has freely given us. Our Father wants us completely and absolutely saved and He loves us so much that He did something to insure it. Today is the day of the Lord, rejoice and be glad in it. "Wherein He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him. Seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." Hebrews 7:25

If you don’t believe me that according to God we prosper in everything that we do, then go and read the verses before and after the ones that we have discussed, go and read all of John 15 and 16. If you want to see some real power go and read John 17. I am not taken these Truths out of context. Our Father said it; it’s Truth! Man can argue with these scriptures all he wants; it doesn’t change what God is and who we are in Him. Faith comes from hearing and hearing form the Word of God. I know that without the Holy Ghost these Truths will absolutely disturb the daylights out of us. But with the Holy Ghost, with God Himself dwelling on the inside of us, even if we are babies in Christ, these truths will just sound right, and they will take root and grow within us. If you already know them, A-men, than you’re not alone in your faith. Together we can agree on who we are in Christ and together we can have the fullness and absolute power of God flowing through us and be willing vessels unto His great purposes!

“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound in every good work;” 2 Corinthians 9:8 The glorious Truth is that we have all grace abounding towards us, we have all sufficiency in all things, and through Christ we are abounding in every good work! We have all of this because our Father is able to do it through us and He wants to do it through us! If you think we are limited by anything, go and study on the Truth of grace, it means unmerited favor. So it doesn’t matter who we were and it doesn’t matter how mature we are in Christ, if we are saved, we have all grace abounding within us so that we may always have all sufficiency in all things. Because our Father is God we have sufficiency in all Truth, all Hope, all Love, all Faith, all Knowledge, all Wisdom, all Forgiveness, all Health, all Finances, all Joy, all Peace, all Power, all Miracles, all Prophecies, all Discernment, all of God abounding within us! We have all, so that He may abound in every good work through us! Our Father is willing and able to perform what He has said, and God said that we would abound. Our Father said all and He said every! That is our Dad and He is able to do superabundantly, far above what we can ask or think, by His power that is at work within us!

This is our salvation through Jesus Christ. It’s not some boring uneventful thing that just gets us to Heaven. It is alive, it is full, it is fun, and it is all and it’s abounding! Hallelujah, that’s good preaching!

A Benefit of Salvation: Abundant Lives

"I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief cometh, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." John 10:9-10

Plain and simple, Jesus came that we might be saved and He came so that through Him we would have an abundant life! Jesus came so that we might be preserved and He has delivered us from danger. Jesus came so that we might be delivered from the power, pleasure, presence, and penalty of sin. Jesus came that we might have health and so that we might be delivered from all earthly ills, and Jesus came so that we might be saved from all of the evils that obstruct our reception of our Father's deliverance. Jesus came so that we might have all of these blessings in abundance! And now is the time of our abundant salvation! Now we have life, now we have Jesus, now we have the Holy Ghost dwelling within us, and now we have it all abundantly.

Look throughout the Bible: Paul and Silas sang songs of praise while they were in Jail. Peter slept so soundly in jail, even after they had killed James the day before, that the Angel had to slap him to wake him up to deliver him. Stephen was being stoned and He still cried out for his killers’ forgiveness, you talk about abundant lives, these guys were filled with the fullness of God to live in such peace. Jesus and Peter needed to pay their taxes, so they just caught a fish that had the exact amount of money in its mouth that they needed! You want to talk about abundance; Jesus had a thief in charge of His moneybag. Go ahead and steal Judas, God was supplying their needs according to His riches and glory! There is no one, including satan, that can steal from us fast enough to overcome our needs being met by our Father's riches in glory in Christ Jesus!

Turn in you Bible to Deuteronomy 28:2-13. "And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of they cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall cause thy enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face; they shall come at the one way, and flee before thee seven ways. The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and He shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. The Lord shall establish thee a holy people unto Himself, as He hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways. And all the people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of thee. And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of they cattle, in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee. The Lord shall open unto thee His good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend to many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only and thou shalt not be beneath; if thou shalt hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe to do them:"

In these verses were Moses talking to the children of Israel and telling them that if they followed the Law of God, then all of these blessing would come upon them, and actually these blessings would overtake them! Now here is the really cool part for us today.

“So that the righteous and just requirement of the Law might be fully met within us who live and move not in the ways of the flesh but in the ways of the Spirit [our lives governed not by the standards and according to the dictates of the flesh, but controlled by the Holy Spirit.] Romans 8:4 Amplified Bible

Everything that our Father required to have all of these blessings overtake the children of Israel has now been fully met for us by Jesus, so that we may now have all of God’s blessings in abundance! Here is the really important Truth about our abundance in Christ: not only can we have all of these blessing in abundance because of Jesus, but we can have them just like Jesus has them! Jesus said in John 17: 22, that He gave us the exact same glory that He has, and our righteousness is now of Him, Philippians 3:9. Jesus said that He would send the Holy Ghost, so that the Holy Ghost could take everything that Jesus has, and give it to us, John 16:13-16. We have an abundant life and our abundance is directly from our Father, and God loves us just as He loves Jesus. Our Father's abundance overtakes us and praise God we don’t have to take thought for it, Matthew 6:25!

We don’t have to take thought for being blessed. We don’t have to take thought for being victorious when attacked by our enemies. We don’t have to take thought for having an abundance of goods, or being blessed at our work, and we don’t even have to take thought for being Holy. Hallelujah, our Father said that His blessings would overtake us, so it is Truth! Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has given us all of these blessings freely and abundantly! How much time do we all spend praying for work, praying for bills to be paid, and praying to be holy? When Jesus said that He came so that we might have all of these blessings abundantly and that all of these blessings would overtake us!

So if we aren’t to take thought for these things, what should we take thought for? We should take thought for these things to be realized and experienced in others! Jesus lives to ever intercede for us, and we are one with Him, so we too should ever live to intercede for others. Whatsoever thing a man soweth, that shall he reap! If we want to be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, we need to be the biggest servants, Matthew 23:11! Jesus taught us to take no thought for our own lives and He came and was sacrificed so that we could actually live and realize it! Our Father never requires us to do anything that He has not provided a way for Him to do it through us! God is within us, strengthening us, encouraging us, authoring our faith, and He is ever living to intercede for us. We are more than capable through Christ Who strengthens us to take absolutely no thought for these blessings of abundance to overtake us! How peaceful is that, you talk about an abundant life, not having to take thought for it as we enjoy it, wow! That is true Godly abundance!

The Truth will set us free. The Truth will set Islamic extremist free, it will set atheist free, it will set young and old, male and female, minority and majority free! Faith comes from hearing the Truth and faith is the evidence of things hoped for. I do hope for this: to live as my Lord and Savior lives, to actually be as He is in this world, as 1 John 4:17 teaches! Out of all of the blessings proclaimed in these verses, the one I want you to really remember and take hold of is, "shall come on thee, and overtake thee." Far too many of us believe that we have to labor intensely, and only after we get it exactly right, will we be blessed. That is crazy; for those of you that have kids, you know what I mean. As parents we are responsible for the well being of our children. Far more times than not, we pour out blessings on our kids, and they have done nothing, other than being our kids, to earn the blessings. Our Father is the same way. Jesus teaches us, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." Matthew 11:29-30 The Truth is that if we have been chosen to say yes to Jesus, these blessing will overtake us! We may be disciplined along the way for taking thought or messing up, but thank God, our disciplining is from our Father and it will lead us into even a greater and more mature walk with Him, and thus more blessings overtaking us!

You think I am wrong? Turn to 2 Corinthians 12 and read. Paul had a thorn in his flesh; a messenger of satan sent to buffet him. What the thorn was, I have no idea, God didn’t have him write what it was. But Paul had went to God three times and asked Him to remove it. Well, what did our Father do? He corrected Paul for taking thought about his own life. Our Father told Paul that His grace, His unmerited favor, was enough. God gave him the answer, so Paul began to praise God in his troubles and our Father was strengthened within him! God’s strength was perfected, perfected mind you, in weakness. Paul didn’t have the strength to praise God in times of trouble, but God sure did, and God’s strength is perfect! Our Father had to have Paul stop taking thought for himself, so that Paul could be delivered! Notice our Father was right there with Paul, He never left him, and He never forsook him, God gave him the answer! I am telling you, our Father said take no thought, it’s not just a good idea, it’s the way that He leads us into an abundant life, and if we are saved, our Father will lead us there! A-men, that is so great, even if we act like immature babies, if we are saved, abundance will overtake us because Jesus came that we might have life and that we might have it abundantly. Our Father is always right here. I may need this and you may need that, our Father knows what it will take with each of us and He is right here leading us and guiding us, teaching us, rewarding us, and disciplining us, and it is all blessing us! Blessing us abundantly!

I hope you see a pattern developing here, according to our Father's Word, His desire for us is to be prosperous in everything we do. His hope for us is to give us the desires of our hearts and to insure that our hearts desire the right things; He gave us a new heart! He has provided a way through Jesus, our Lord and Savior, to accomplish all of His desires for us. God will provide all of our needs, so that we will have an abundant life. In an earlier post I asked why would someone want to be saved, these verses are the beginning of an explanation as to why. Be blessed this day and every day!

A Benefit of Salvation: Hope

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3

When we were born again one of the greatest attributes that our Father bore into us was a lively hope. Christians are able to hope when the world is unable to even think of hope, when the world has no answers, Christians have hope, and the lively hope that has been born into us is the power behind our faith. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1 And as we have studied before, Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith; so Jesus is the One Who is authoring and empowering us to continue in God’s lively hope. Christians are able to have hope when there seems to be no hope, and the reason that we are able to have such hope, is because we have not been given a spirit of fear, 2 Timothy 1:7 We have been given a spirit of peace, love, power, and a sound mind. Now do these attributes sound like anyone we may know? Jesus has all of these things in abundance and He is now within us authoring our faith, which has its beginnings in the lively hope that God has born into us! Our Father is all of these things, He is the fullness of these attributes, and He has chosen us and He has birthed us from His Divine Seed. When God created us, He created us in His image, He breathed life into us, and that life came directly from His life. Our Father didn’t conjure up a different life force for us; He gave us His life force, just as He gave it to Jesus. Jesus doesn’t fear, He doesn’t fear failure; He doesn’t fear death, He doesn’t fear sickness, and He doesn’t fear what people think of Him. Jesus has no fear and when He was here as a man, he had no fear. What He did have was absolute trust; absolute trust in what our Father had spoken would be done. Absolute Trust that God was willing and able to complete all of the promises that He had proclaimed! The things that our Father was going to do through Jesus had just been spoken of, and that was enough for Jesus! Just God speaking it gave Jesus complete trust and faith that it would be done and we now have Jesus’ mind and we have His Spirit, and we are members of His body!

Think about Jesus’ hope and what it means. Jesus hoped that He would be able to be offered on the Cross, so that we might be saved and have eternal life. His hope was that we might have life and that we might have it abundantly. He hoped that by His stripes we would be healed. God had not done any of these things through man before Jesus went to the Cross, He had only spoken of them, and Jesus had hope that they would be. He had the hope that our Father would strengthen Him so that He could accomplish all that He was to accomplish, and this hope that Jesus had came from only hearing God’s Word about it! This is what we are born of; this is now our hope. The same force within Jesus, the force of hope that allowed Him to come as a man and die on the Cross, is the force of hope that our Father has given to us. Jesus was able to hope and thus He was able to walk in faith, and faith produced the miraculous works that God did through Him to serve others, and faith allowed Jesus to endure the Cross, which served us all! This same lively hope has been born into us! Now stop and actually allow the Holy Spirit to minister to you and strengthen you in the power of this Truth!

When people think of Jesus, they tend to put His hope, His faith, His attitude, and His works in an unattainable category, as if Jesus was the only one that could ever be used to do them. We do this because Jesus is our Lord, He is God, and we believe that by doing so is a way to worship Him. But that’s not what Jesus came to do. Jesus didn’t come to show us that He was superior to us, even though He is! He came to show us and to empower us to live as our Father desires for us to live, just as He lives. Jesus came to show us that we could have hope as He has hope, that we could have faith, as He has faith, and that God could do His works through us, just as God did through Him. Jesus came to tell us that our God could even do greater works through us because He has gone to the Father. That is why our Father had it written that Jesus Authors and Finishes our faith, that He is the one that gave us hope, and that He is the One performing the works through us. Jesus is Sovereign, He is our Lord, and He gave us all that He has, so that we could live as He lives. Jesus is hope, and He is faith, and He is love, and He is power, and we are now and forevermore one with Him. “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world.” 1 John 4:17 Jesus is a being of hope, and as He is, so are we in this world! We truly worship Him and we truly please our Father by allowing Him to live within us, as He lives within Jesus! We can’t help but be filled with hope; it’s how God has made us!

“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Romans 15:13 Our Father has given us the Holy Ghost to empower us to believe His Truth and in believing we will have peace, just as Jesus does. Jesus isn’t fretting about anything, all of His needs are met, and we too are able to have His lively hope in this! Yet we don’t just hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit we abound in hope! Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, and we have been given the Holy Ghost so that we may abound in God’s hope, so praise be to God, we may abound in His faith! And to insure that we do, we have our Father's very Spirit within us! Jesus taught that if we have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, that we could tell a mountain to move and it would obey us. It doesn’t take a lot of faith to be powerful, and our Father has given us Himself, so that we may abound in it. Our Father is a God of hope, and this is what He hopes for us and He has filled us with all peace and with all joy so that we may abound in His hope! Faith comes from hearing the Word of God, so you bet ya; I am going to desire and allow our Father to preach it through me! I need this Truth, life in this world without Jesus is ruff! But through Jesus we have hope and hope brings faith and faith brings abundant life results!

“And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Romans 5:5 There is no fear in the perfect love of Jesus and we have not been given a spirit of fear! We will not be ashamed in hoping for these things. Our Father is in our hearts. These Truths are how He is, these scriptures are His Truths, Heaven and Earth will pass away, but these Truths shall remain, and hoping for them, will never leave us ashamed! There is no fear in hoping for the greatness of God to be revealed and realized through us! We shall not be ashamed in our hope that our Father will perform His signs through us, and that we will have boldness is the Day of Judgment!

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of your calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” Ephesians 1:17-18

“And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.” 1 John 3:3 Our Father bore into us His lively hope. God gave us His Holy Spirit so that we may abound in hope, and Jesus Authors and Finishes our hope. So if we are saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, we have this hope! And praise God that means we are pure, even as He is pure! Salvation goes so far beyond what is being preached by the masses. Our Father gave it all to us and there is nothing lacking in salvation, nothing! Open up the Bible and read about how God worked through Jesus and when you do, remember that our Father gave us the same hope, the same faith, the same Anointing, and the same Spirit, so that He could do the same things through us! He did it so that we could be used as servants, just as Jesus served! We are not saviors, but we are tools of the Savior. When Jesus was here, He physically laid hands on the sick and they were healed, we are now His tools to do the same. When Jesus was here, He allowed the power of the Spirit to show people that God was real, and now we are His tools to do the same! Jesus is Lord and we are members of His body and He will use us to glorify God as He serves the needs of those around us!

A Benefit of Salvation: Faith

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” Hebrews 11:6

It is impossible for us to please our Father without faith, now here is the question, what exactly is faith? According to the Word of God, faith is believing that our Father is and believing that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him! Now a lot of people believe in God, just go and ask them. But when was the last time you heard it preached, that to please God, you also had to believe that He would reward you for seeking Him. Well, if we want to please God, according to His Word, we have to have both, and that is the glory of our salvation, God wants us to have both! Our Father wants a relationship with us and He also wants us to be rewarded because of that relationship. “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10 Faith that is pleasing to our Father accepts this Truth! Faith doesn’t stumble at the blessings of God, blessings such as an abundant life; love, health, peace, joy, hope, wisdom, knowledge, spiritual gifts, or sanctification. Faith diligently seeks out these promises of God. Faith knows that now is the time of our salvation through Jesus Christ and faith knows that all of the blessings and powers of God are for us right now in Christ!

Never be ashamed or afraid of wanting everything that our Father has, actually we should eagerly desire everything, and believe that He will reward us for doing so. This is the spirit that has been born into us, a spirit of hope, faith, peace, and a sound mind; we have not been given a spirit that fears the promises of God, but one that diligently seeks them! The Holy Spirit of God Who now dwells within us, and Who now strengthens us, and Who now comforts us, and Who now teaches us all our Father's Truths, believes that God is willing to give us everything. The Holy Spirit also believes that God is able to give us everything. We are now God’s children. We are now joint-heirs with Jesus and our Father has created us in His own image, so that we can have fellowship with Him. Our Father has strengthened us with His Anointing, so that just as Jesus has fellowship with Him, so can we. Our Father has accomplished everything needed for us to be in perfect fellowship with Him! This is the abundant life that Jesus came for us to have and this is eternal life!

“He staggered not at the promises of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was also able to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” Romans 4:20-25 Abraham was a hundred years old and his wife Sarah was about ninety. Our Father promised them a child and He promised Abraham that He would establish His Covenant through him, and Abraham staggered not at what our Father had promised him. Abraham believed God was willing and he believed God was able, and he believed that God would reward him for it, and since Abraham did, our Father justified him!

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:” Romans 5:1 We are justified by believing in God and we are justified by believing that we will be rewarded for doing so, just as Abraham was justified and counted as righteous for believing in the promises of God. So when will we receive our reward from our Father? Is our reward reserved for us in Heaven, waiting on us for when we arrive there, or is our reward to be enjoyed right now, on this earth, or is it both?

“(For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation.” 2 Corinthians 6:2

Our Father proclaims that now is the time of our reward, as well as in the future! Once we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to say yes to Jesus we have peace with God, and we are rewarded from that point on, right now and forever more! Abraham had Isaac, the child that God had promised him while on the earth; the Covenant that God created with Abraham came into existence on this earth. Abraham didn’t have to wait until Heaven to receive these rewards and we don’t have to wait either for the promises of our Father to be realized and lived. Heaven will be great, it will be better than the earth, and our eternity with our Father in the New Heaven and new Earth will be stunning! But we have great and precious promises for our lives right now, and to please our Father we must believe that we have both! What faith really allows us to believe is that God is every bit as much a force in our lives right now as He will be in Heaven!

From the very second that the Holy Spirit leads us to make Jesus Christ our Lord and we baptized, or filled, with the Holy Spirit we have eternal life, we have an abundant life, and we have a life that is filled with the fruits of the Spirit and a life that is filled with the very presence of God. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” John 5:24 We have passed from death unto life, we have passed unto an abundant life, a life where God is the provider of everything that pertains unto life and unto holiness! If we have faith in these Truths, our Father is pleased and we are justified!

Now here is the really awesome Truth of the power of our salvation, we don’t come up with this faith on our own to believe that God is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. Nope, Jesus gives us the faith to believe these things!

“Looking unto Jesus the Authorer 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.” Hebrews 12:2

How great is that? To please our Father we need to have faith; Jesus knows this, so He Authors and He Finishes our faith, so that we can be pleasing to God! There is nothing that our Father has not provided with our salvation. Jesus knows the rewards of our Father. He knows what a life filled with God can be, and we have Him right here with us, insuring that we can know and live these Truths as well. Jesus completely knows the power of our Father, the will of God, and the desires of God and He has complete and total faith concerning them, and Jesus now Authors and Finishes our faith!

Faith is not a human ability to believe the promises of God, faith is Jesus’ ability working through humans to accept and believe God’s promises. And there is not one believer who lacks faith, not one, that’s why we cannot boast! “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.” Romans 12:3 “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

How awesome are those two verses? We don’t have to take any thought about having enough faith, our Father has given us the measure of faith to believe and we now live with the power of Jesus’ faith to believe. We haven’t just been given the ability to believe, we have been given Jesus’ ability to believe! Man that is good Truth! Jesus Authors and Finishes our faith, and He doesn’t write a different faith book for each of us. Jesus gives us the One that was written by God for Him, and we now live by Jesus’ faith. Jesus isn’t stumbling when our Father says all, He doesn’t stumble over a spiritual gift like tongues. Jesus completely and totally understands our Father and He places within us His ability to believe in all of His Truths!

“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Romans 10:17 The Word tells us that we have Jesus’ actual faith. The Bible teaches us that we have been given the measure of faith, and the Bible teaches that Jesus Authors and Finishes our faith. So if we have Jesus as the Lord of our lives, we have the ability to believe that God is, and that He will reward us for diligently seeking Him, just as Jesus believes these things! Our Father has seen to it, with Christ we can do all things!

Everywhere we turn, we see that our Father is the One doing His works of righteousness through us, and since He is, we then are able to fully enjoy the benefits of righteousness! There is now no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus! Do you see why? Our Father has placed the responsibility of faith on Himself, not on us. He is the One Who will guide us into a faithful life, and He is the One Who will prune anything out that needs pruning, so that He can continually produce more and more fruit through us. Jesus is the refiners fire and the fullers soap! So if there is anything within us that would hinder our faith, He burns it out. He is our Shepherd; He leads us right to where we need to be to walk in His faith. He is our Vine; He is continually providing the very life giving powers that allow us to be all that our Father has made us to be. We have it all with God and our Savior Jesus Christ, there is nothing lacking for us, and because of Jesus, we can be fully pleasing to our Father. We are God’s children; there is absolutely nothing He has, that He hasn’t given us through Jesus! Faith to serve Him, faith to serve others, faith to move a mountain, faith to heal the sick, faith that freely receives and freely gives, faith to know beyond any shadow of a doubt that we are God’s kids, and faith that we are complete in Jesus, the Firstborn among many brethren! Faith to live as Jesus lives, knowing that it is God within us, doing the works!

Father, Your Will Be Done

Our Father which art in Heaven, hollowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven! The awesome Truth that goes right along with the Lord’s Prayer is that our Father's will for us on the earth is as splendid and glorified as His will is for those in Heaven! The most faithful thing that we can ever desire is for God’s will to be done in our lives and the goodness of His will far exceeds anything that we can think of! “Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]” Ephesians 3:20 Amplified Bible

Our Father's will is for everyone to be saved from the Lake of Fire! “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:3-4

Our Father's will if for us to be blessed! “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:” Ephesians 1:3 In Heavenly places, so we must have to wait for them? “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:” Ephesians 2:6

Our Father's will is for us to be Holy! “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled. In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight:” Colossians 1:21-22

Our Father’s will is for us to be glorified! “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:” John 17:22

Our Father’s will is for us to be healthy! “Who His Own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by Whose stripes ye were healed.” 1 Peter 2:23

Our Father’s will is for us to be perfect! “I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.” John 17:23

Our Father’s will is for us to be knowledgeable! “That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;” 1 Corinthians 1:5

Our Father’s will is for us to be prosperous! “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:” 2 Corinthians 9:8

Our Father’s will is for us to be one with Him! “I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.” John 17:23

Our Father’s will is for us to have peace! “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7

Our Father’s will is for us to have joy! “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” John 15:11

Our Father’s will for us is to have love! “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Romans 5:5

Our Father’s will is for us to be victorious! “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” Romans 8:37

Our Father’s will is for us to be powerful! “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.” Ephesians 6:10

Our Father’s will is for us to do miraculous things! “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” John 14:12

Our Father’s will is for us to be just like He is! “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.” 1 John 4:17

Our Father’s will is for us to have all of these things right now! “(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)” 2 Corinthians 6:2

The next time you pray the Lord’s prayer stop and thank God that these scriptures are His will! Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly and today is the day of our salvation and our Father gives us the strength to rejoice and be glad in it! Today is the day that no weapon that has been formed against us will prosper! Today is the day that we can do all things through Christ Who strengthens us! Today is the day that Jesus will never leave us or forsake us! Today is the day that Jesus is Authoring and Finishing our faith so that we will know beyond any shadow of a doubt that all of these verses are our Father’s will for us! And today is the day that our hope in them will not leave us ashamed! Father Your will be done!

Love: A Benefit of Our Salvation

"And I have declared unto them Thy Name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast love Me may be in them and I in them.” John 17:26

Jesus taught us that in the world there will be tribulations, just turn on the news or pick up a newspaper and you will see that He knew what He was talking about. But Jesus also told us to be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world! Jesus has robbed the evil that is in the world of all its power over us, it can no longer harm us, or to move us off of our firm foundation of Truth that has set us free!

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Jesus came and declared God’s Name unto us, and He continues to do so today, and because of the Truth that He gives, we now have love, and not just any love, Jesus gave us the ultimate love, the love that God has for His Son. The love of our Father now abides within us! Remember what Jesus said, He will continue to declare our Father's Name to us. Jesus ever lives to intercede for us; He is right here with us, He never leaves us or forsakes us! God’s love for Jesus, the love that Jesus has given to us, is perfect love and God’s perfect love casts out all fear.

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18

Jesus gave us the perfect love of our Father and that love casts out fear! Notice that it’s God’s love that casts out fear. Our Father is the One Who is doing it, He has not left us alone to just use His love to cast out fear, He is right here with us, never leaving us or forsaking us! Our Father does not leave us on our own to love! To become perfect in love does not mean that we will be the ones doing the works; it means that our Father is the One Who will be doing the works through us, just like it was God in Jesus doing the works.

“Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father in Me, He doeth the works.” John 14:10

Now if you go on to verse 11, Jesus teaches that it is by the works of the Father that we can believe. If it was just you and I using God’s love, we would fail all of the time! But it’s not us, it’s our Father in us doing His works through us, and He never fails, and that is why people can believe. People can see God within us and that is what will bring the hope of an abundant life, a life without fear, and a life of perfect salvation!

100% of the tribulation in this world comes directly from fear. Think about what brings on the torment of tribulation, fear of disease, fear of finances, fear of crime, or fear of failure. Fear causes dictators to kill those who disagree with them. Fear allows people to allow a dictator to gain power in the first place! Fear of failure or being out done causes businessmen to lie and cheat. Fear of getting old causes people to spend millions of dollars needlessly on changing themselves. Fear of not keeping up with the neighbors causes people to go into debt. Fear of reality causes people to become dependent on drugs and alcohol. There is fear that if someone is elected who isn’t from your political party than the world will be devastated. Every tribulation has its beginning in fear and the media and satan play on it all day long! Fear has torment and fear is of the world, it is not of God! Our Father uses His Truth and His Holy Spirit to teach us, He does not use fear!

So what do we do for those who use fear, such as the media, who use fear to sell their wares, which according to Jesus is a very dangerous thing to do! “And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe on Me, it is better for them that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” Mark 9:42 We don’t hate these people, or lash out against them, we do not use condemnation, just as God does not use condemnation against us, Romans 8:1. We don’t go and create our own media whose sole purpose is to point out the faults of those who are living in the world, or try and use fear of what fear can do to stop people from listening to them! What we do is love them; we love them as our Father loves Jesus! We pray for them, as Jesus taught us to do, and we ever live to intercede for them in a never ending hope of their salvation! “But I say unto you which hear, love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.” Luke 6:27-28

We use the weapons of our warfare that are spiritual, not carnal, to bring down the strongholds of the enemies of God! “(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)” 2 Corinthians 10:4 We are empowered by the Holy Spirit and He uses prayer, He uses charity, He uses faith, hope, love, and Truth! The Holy Spirit uses us to bind the things that are contrary to God’s Truths with the power of the Name of Jesus Christ that has been given us! We speak the Word of God through the strength of the Holy Spirit that is within us, which is the sharp two-edged sword of God. Our Father uses His greatest weapon through us, His love. He uses the love that Jesus gave us, His perfect love that casts out fear! As our Father is in Heaven, so is He in this world! We love, even when people are against us! “But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” Ephesians 2:4-5

I can preach that we have to love and that is the Truth, we do have to love! But that is not the complete Truth of God, the Truth that will set us free. The complete Truth is this, we can’t help but love, we are born of it, the only reason we are born again is because of our Father's love for us. Love is the seed that we come from. We are now one with Love! “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” 1 John 4:16 Jesus is now our Head, He is our Vine, we are His body, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, and since we are, we have Jesus’ characteristics; we love all, even when they hate us. We love those who love us and we love those who hate us, just as Jesus loves! Jesus was on the Cross, they were brutally killing Him, and He cried out for their forgiveness! This is the love that is now within us! This is Who we are born again from and this is Who now abides within us, this is the Holy Spirit we now have strengthening us and teaching us.

Love is not just born into us. God has given us a new heart and a new mind that are capable of operating in His love and He has placed His very Spirit within us that causes us to walk in His love. That is one of the greatest powers of salvation, we just love, and there is no fear in love. We know our Father loves us and nothing that the world can do to us will take us out of Love’s hand, we are sealed with it, we are one with it, and we are Love’s Temple! God is Love, and we are more than conquerors through Love. Love leads us into the paths of righteousness, we are new creatures in Love, old things are past away and all things have become new for us, Love is now our Shepherd, and Love is for us, so who can be against us? I can preach we have to love, but if I don’t preach that we can’t help but love, than I haven’t preached the Truth that sets us free!

“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19 Jesus came and died on the Cross for us so that we could become one with Him, so that we could be filled with His Holy Spirit, and so that we might know God, which according to John 17:3, is eternal life! He came so that we would be grounded in love. In the world there is fear, but we can be of good cheer, because we are grounded in love and love casts out all fear and torment! Jesus came that we might know love completely, as He knows love completely, that we might operate in love continually, as He operates in love continually. He came that we could actually know the breadth, length, and height of love. He came that we might know His love that far passes knowledge and He came that we might be filled with the fullness of God, the fullness of Love! What a great benefit of being saved, to know this kind of love and be filled with it! There is nothing that God has not provided for us completely and there is nothing that is required of us that He is not right there with us, giving us the faith, the will, the desire, the ability, and the power to do. We can do nothing without Him, yet with Him we can do everything!

“And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Romans 5:5 Love allows us to never be ashamed, love allows us to hope, and we have love shed abroad in our hearts by the very Spirit of God. And nothing will ever separate us from God’s love. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Romans 8:35 “Nay, in all things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:37-39 Wow, nothing, mind you nothing, can separate us from our Lord and the love of God! Nothing present and we are in the present, no creature can and we are creatures, not life, and we are life, do you see where I am going? Once we are truly saved, even our own stupidity can’t separate us from Christ. As we need it, God will prune out anything that is contrary to His Truth, and if it needs to be burned out of us, than Jesus is our refiner’s fire and the fuller’s soap! Once we say yes to Jesus, than there is noting that can ever separate us, including ourselves, because we are no longer our own, that can separate us from Love. God and Jesus are love, and nothing will separate us from Them! That is the greatest gift of salvation; nothing will ever separate us from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! I hear people say that they can walk away from God, well that’s kind of hard when He said that He would never leave us! Can we walk away from Omnipotence? Now that is peace and that is perfect peace that passes understanding, and that is perfect love that casts out all fear and all torment. We know who we are, and we know where we are going, and nothing can separate us from it, including ourselves!

God is love, we are born of Him, we are one with Him, we have His Spirit, and we have His mind, so when we say yes to Jesus Christ and make Him Lord of our lives, we too become love! And love is not selfish, it is giving, its kind, its helpful, its powerful, full of faith and hope, and it passes knowledge! This is who we are in Christ Jesus and this is why salvation is so great!