Possibly no recognized worldly concept of a leader applies to any such men described in the NT, and this could be due to the fact that elders always functioned in unison with one another: You never find one man standing up declaring, “I am the leader!“
Sometimes it seemed as if Peter was the “leader”, then James, then Paul: it was a dynamic, fluid thing, where God’s wisdom for a particular matter could come thru any of the elders.
It’s not intellectual power or knowledge that determines whether one is wise or a fool, according to Scripture, it’s whether we obey God.
Satan tempts the human race, the Bible says, right from the first man and woman till now. No doubt, he especially tried his hardest to tempt the Son of God to sin, exerting all his powers of temptation on Him and failing in the attempt. Now, “how” Jesus overcame will be the same order for how we overcome, in Him. One key is in Jesus’ statement that satan has “nothing in me”. Satan could not get a foothold in Jesus’ life for there was no place for him in Jesus life, he had nothing invested in Him. Jesus gave no place to the devil, so the devil could not take any place. The place was reserved for the Father, as our bodies are reserved, set apart, sanctified, for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
If we want our relationship to Jesus to be real or more real, we have to be real in every facet of life. Those who really know Jesus are real in every aspect of their life: nothing fake, phony, hypocritical, pretentious or pretending. Church would be a good place to start, to drop the program and start being real.
The beautiful thing about circumstances beyond our control is that they are never beyond the control of the Sovereign Lord God, and that takes a load off our mind.
Father, have mercy on my friend, just as you had mercy on me.
Animals have their environments, people also have their environments, and Jesus has His environment: Holiness, faith, truth and love is the environment He dwells in, and calls us to desire His environment, and make any adjustments necessary so that He is pleased to dwell with us, and not grieved by living with us – a dwelling place, a habitation of God in the Spirit (see Ephesians 2:22). It’s always because He is here.
When we’re asking anything from God we need to be satisfied first that this request fulfills the purpose and plan of God:
“And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he hears us” (I John 5:14)
The word of God divides and separates the holy from the unholy, light from darkness, true disciples from non-disciples, but it never separates saints from saints, it never divides the body of Christ. If it does it’s not the word of God.
When a writer or preacher is superficial it’s bcos their life is superficial.
Do you know why God made people? One of the reasons is so that He can fill them with His Spirit, and they can be living, holy Temples of God (thus doing away with any man-made temples), and He accomplished this thru the death of His Son on the Cross, removing the barrier of sin separating man from God. It doesn’t matter who is reading this, ask yourself, Do I want to be what God made me to be? Do I want my body to be a Temple of God, where God dwells? If you do, talk to Him about it.
False teachers ALWAYS appeal to your flesh, in some form or other: they appeal to your ego, your pride, your intellectual pride, your spiritual pride, feelings of superiority or elitism, to your covetousness, to any sinful desire to justify indulging in unlawful liberties. The key is this: they speak only for their own benefit, and their appeal is in the same order, appealing to those who only seek their own benefit.
When Jesus commanded us to take up our cross He never meant we had to carry it alone.
The Kingdom of Christ is reality, and everything else is not.
Prayer is the most powerful thing we ever do, cos everything else springs forth from it.
While an easy life is nice, those who have an easy life never really live.
It’s a “zombie apocalypse” world, and the zombies are the Liberals. It’s almost scary to think there are people among us who have no absolute moral values.
Anything which panders to or appeals to the pride of man is bad.
If we always play one note on the piano it’s because we can’t “hear the music”.
One of the paradoxes of Jesus is that He was very tough and yet very soft hearted.
And, for eternity He never changes.
Ian Vincent 