Merry Christmas!
Sorry so late today.
Jesus was born so that men no more may die.
The reason is that he was born to die on the cross.
In his death he would take on a debt he did not owe.
And paid for the debt that we could never pay.
Salvation is a turning away from sin in our lives.
We need to confess our sin and proclaim the grace (free gift) of Jesus with his work on the cross. Not only should he be our Savior but he needs to be our Lord so that when we put of the old man, we can take on Jesus righteousness. Are we perfect? No, that is why we must confess any time we deviate from his will for us.
I need to surrender more of me to my Lord daily. It is the only way I will be more like Jesus.
Power, Love, and Discipline
One of the miracles of salvation is that when we have faith in Christ, God not only saves us—He also gives us the power to live according to His will. Your life in Christ is one that is empowered by the Holy Spirit living within you.
This is a great gift, but a big shift. It often takes time to change how we think and act. We may have bad habits that take hard work to correct, or patterns of thought that are challenging to break.
Thankfully, God promises to be with us and to empower us to make these changes in our life. When Paul is writing to his mentee Timothy, he encourages him to continue to develop the gift that God has given to him. While we are saved in an instant, it takes a lifetime to develop and work out what God is doing inside of us.
Paul reminds Timothy that God’s Spirit does not give us fear or cowardice. Those things are tools of the devil who is trying to keep us from God. But the Spirit of God empowers us with confidence in Him. He gives us the ...