WHO WOULDN'T WANT THAT?

I love the way the apostle Paul addressed believers wherever he went. Always lifting up the name of Jesus and always encouraging the believers to be faithful. That is exactly the way this ministry, the Spirit of Wisdom Ministry, greets you. Look at Galatians 1:3-5:

“Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: To whom be glory forever and ever, Amen.”

Welcome everyone to your 24/7, week long, online church service. Let us always emphasize, everyone is received with grace and love in this place. In the above scripture, grace and peace are offered freely to you. That is only possible because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Do you really understand what Jesus did for us on that cross? He reconciled us with God. He took our sin upon himself and relieved us from the burden and dominion of sin over our lives. Can we return to that burden and dominion of sin? Yes we can, but why would we? Notice in verse 3 that grace and peace come to us through God and from our Lord, Jesus Christ.

So, here is the question for you, my friends. Have you made Jesus Lord of your life? Verse 4 talks about why Jesus gave himself for us. He died that horrible, painful death on the cross for our sins. Do you get that? Not for his sins, because he had none, but for our sins. Sins that were separating us from God. This verse also says Jesus did all this to deliver us from this present evil world. The only salvation is through Jesus Christ and what he did for us on the cross. This was all done for us according to the will of God and our Father. Notice believer, that the apostle Paul declares God as our Father.

How many times have we told you God does not just want you to be his creation, he wants you to be his family. He desires to be your Father. He desires for you to be his children. Now, as the scripture says, let's give him glory forever and ever.

Peter, another great apostle and advocate for Jesus Christ. Tells us more about what Jesus did for us. Turn to I Peter 2:24-25:

“Who by his own self bear 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. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls.”

Let's stop and think for a moment. Consider how you were before Jesus came into your life. Your thoughts, your actions, your emotions. I know many of you considered yourselves to be good people. Most of the time I did too. Yet, we always knew something was wrong and we were heading in the wrong direction, didn't we? Even as we thought of ourselves as being good, in our soul we knew we were burdened down by the weight of this sinful world and our sinful desires. Truth time here, my friends!!

We either knew or at least heard of Jesus. But, he really wasn't high on our list of priorities, was he? As good as we thought or hoped we were, the journey we were on seemed to be one leading to dissatisfaction and discontent. Even if we had good jobs, fine families, money in our pocket or not, something in our hearts kept us aware we were missing out on something very important in our lives. Nothing in this world seemed big enough or good enough to fill the vacant place in our soul.

Many times we would feel the tug on our heart, but we either didn't know what it was or we just tried to ignore it, didn't we? Then God began to put believers in our lives, or even those TV preachers began to get to us with the message of Jesus Christ. God was revealing himself to us. He was giving us eyes to see and ears to hear. Remember when you used to pick up the Bible and all you saw were the “thees” and “thous?” Come on, stay with me here. You know I'm talking truth.

Listen, nonbelievers, is this beginning to make any sense to you? God has given me this message for you as well as for the believers. Now, as believers, we can read the scriptures in 1 Peter and understand exactly what God is saying to us. Peter told us that Jesus bore our sins in his own body. Where? On the cross so we could be dead to sin and live a righteous life. So what is a righteous life? It is a life where you are in tune with God and all his ways. The only way to do that is to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. This scripture also talks about Jesus taking stripes on his back for our healing.

This ministry believes in physical and spiritual healing. However, for this message we are talking about spiritual healing only. Remember we talked about the vacant area in your soul? By Jesus becoming our substitute and freeing us from sin, we are healed by receiving God's son into our heart and life. Now we are complete. The journey of this life takes a new direction. Now, we journey toward eternal life with our heavenly Father and we walk away from eternal death. So you tell me. Who wouldn't want that?

God Bless You,
Bro. Bob