The power of Three

(editor’s note: working on a new article and memoir update to post tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s another great outtake from a study given by Ohio preacher David Reid):

“If God existed in only one person then He would be dependent on some created being in order to have a relationship. But God can’t be incomplete and He can’t be dependent on His creation.

“Does God need something from man or a created being? You know why that matters? If God existed in only one person, there would be no one for Him to love in the absence of His creation.

“If there’s only one person in the godhead, is there anyone else for God to glorify or have fellowship with?

 “What happened in eternity past is the three persons of the godhead (the scriptural word for ‘trinity’ is ‘godhead’) got together and decided what they were going to accomplish throughout time. They decided they were going to use time to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.

“The reason the three persons of the godhead exist is to glorify one another (John 17:1). There’s something very shallow about glorifying yourself, but there’s nothing shallow at all about glorifying another person.

*****

“There’s a fundamental order to the universe making three the strongest shape (Exodus 3:13, I John 5:7-8). The idea is there are three that testify. So there are three that bear record in heaven—the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.

“Apparently there’s a divine design to the universe that reflects the character of God Himself.

“The godhead has to exist with one God in three persons for God to be able to bear fully accurate testimony of Himself without being dependent on anything else in the universe. This allows God to be complete by Himself.

“Like I’m saying, God didn’t need us to give Himself someone to love. What our role is we have the privilege, honor and the incredible grace of God to participate in the love that already existed between the three members of the godhead before the world began.

*****

“Guess how many times the word ‘godhead’ appears in Scripture? Three. Isn’t that interesting? You’d almost think there was a design intelligence that inspired it and put it that way. If you believe coincidences like that are just coincidences, my personal opinion is you’re naïve.

“They’re not coincidences. They’re there because in the divine intelligence of God that’s the way it’s been designed.

“I would suggest to you that if all you believed were those three verses and nothing else, it would RULE OUT all the other religions of the world as to the godhead.

“Acts 17:29 says, ‘Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.’

“What that verse tells you is the godhead is fundamentally different from the dumb gods of this world that are carved, made by human hands. It tells you how to think about the molten calf in Exodus, for example.

*****

“Romans 1:20 says, ‘For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.’

“Verse 19 is a problem for the lost man. It says, ‘Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.’

“What they learn is God has power. If God didn’t have any power, but He had all sorts of wrath against sin, no one would care. The verse indicates the godhead is known to man.

“What Romans 19’s saying is that ‘being understood by the things that are made’ included God’s eternal power in the godhead.”

How-to on unburdening yourself

One of things people incorrectly say is God doesn’t physically intervene on the earth today.

In a recent study, Ohio preacher David Reid asked the rhetorical question: “Who does this earth belong to?”

He explained, “The first thought that may go through your mind is that it belongs to Satan. That’s not scripturally true.

“I Corinthians 10:26 says, ‘For the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.’ That verse says the earth belongs to the Lord. You may be wondering, ‘Yeah, but what about II Corinthians 4:4 where it calls Satan the god of this world?’

 “That verse says that Satan is the god who the world worships. There’s a difference between the two. Who does the world choose to worship?

“The point I’m making is when people talk about God intervening in the world, that’s the same thing as saying you intervene in your car. Do you intervene in your car when you steer it, or is it YOUR car?!

“You’re not coming between you and your car; your car BELONGS to you. So when you steer it, you didn’t intervene; it belongs to you—you CONTROL it!

“The earth is the Lord’s. God owns the earth, just as He always has because, guess what, He MADE it; it’s His!”

*****

Reid began his discussion about prayer by confessing, “I’ll be honest and tell you that in my life as a grace believer, I’ve had a very pathetic prayer life. My observation is that many grace believers do.

“The critical Pauline passage on prayer in my opinion is Philippians 4:6: ‘Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.’

“ ‘Be careful for nothing,’ is saying, ‘Don’t be full of care, don’t be overwhelmed, don’t be overburdened.’

“ ‘But in everything’ . . .  Notice it says IN everything. In every situation, every circumstance, every detail. Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you can’t pray? Not according to what that says.

“Notice it says ‘let your requests be made known.’ Does it condition them? Does it tell you there are certain things you can’t pray? It says if it’s your request, you can make it known. In fact, what it specifically says is ‘if you have a request, make it known.’ Don’t sit on it; make it known.

*****

“Look at verse 7 because this is what crystallizes prayer in my mind: ‘And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’

“If you put verses 6 and 7 together, it says, ‘Don’t be troubled, and with an attitude of thanksgiving let your requests be made known, and you know what happens? You get peace!’

“I find often in my life I run into problems and my first reaction is, ‘This is bigger than me and I don’t know what to do with it.’

“So what I love about prayer is I can say, ‘God, this is causing me care. Here’s my request. I’m thankful for whatever you want to do with it and, God, it is now your problem. It’s not mine. It’s bigger than me; I’m giving it to you.’

“Verse 7 says what I get from doing that is peace, and that’s even peace that’s beyond my ability to understand. I don’t understand how it works, the details of it, but I understand I’ve given it to the Creator God who loves me and now it’s not my problem. Philippians 4: 6-7 is how you unburden yourself.

*****

“Let me run some verses with you. I Kings 8:54 says, ‘And it was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication unto the LORD, he arose from before the altar of the LORD, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven.’

“Daniel 6:10 says, ‘Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.’

“Luke 22:41 says, ‘And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed.’

“Isn’t that interesting? The Lord Jesus Christ knelt in prayer. Of course, Solomon did, Daniel did.

“Part of prayer is being in humility towards the Creator. Part of prayer is acknowledging your place in the universe and there’s something appropriate and spiritually proper to kneel down in prayer.

*****

“Paul writes in Colossians 4:12, ‘Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.’

“What I find fascinating about that verse is it describes prayer as a labor. It’s actual WORK. I think sometimes we get the idea prayer is passive, but when someone prays for you they’re doing you this great spiritual service. They’re working to help you!

“Isn’t it fascinating to think you can think about a brother, and though he may be far-removed from you, you can care about him, and then by communicating with God about him, you can actually do him good because you are laboring in your soul on his behalf?”

“Paul says in Romans 15:30, ‘Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.’

“Prayer is something that requires effort because it’s a form of warfare. II Corinthians 1:11 says, ‘Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.’ ”

When NO ONE wanted to help . . .

For 30 years Jesus Christ worked with his dad, Joseph, who was a carpenter.

“If you were a carpenter in the days of Christ, that wasn’t just someone who worked in furniture building,” says Jordan. “That was somebody who worked in construction. They didn’t just build furniture; they built houses.

“The Book of Mark, when it describes Jesus, calls Him ‘the carpenter.’ In His occupation, He was a builder. It’s interesting that the Book of Zechariah tells you that’s what He’s going to be. It’s just fascinating how the Bible works.

“So Christ was used to physical labor, used to carrying very heavy things. Some people have that physical prowess and Christ had it.

*****

Describing the severe abuse Christ suffered just before His death, Matthew 27 documents, “And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.
[31] And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.
[32] And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross.”

Jordan says, “We sing a song: ‘The Cross became so heavy He fell beneath the load.’ He wasn’t able to physically carry it because He’d become so weakened.

“One verse says they plowed farrows in His back like a farmer goes and digs up the ground. They beat Him with the whips and that kind of thing.

“Notice Simon wasn’t a volunteer. He was just passing by when they conscripted him. He no doubt could have resented the intervention. He’s a pilgrim come to Jerusalem to worship in the Passover. He lives 800 miles away.

“Imagine the only person they can find in the crowd to help Jesus is somebody they had to conscript. There was NO ONE to volunteer to help Him in all of Jerusalem and of all of His followers!

“In I Corinthians it says after the resurrection Christ appeared to 500 brethren at one time. None of them were there (leading up to) the Cross. He’s completely forsaken, completely abandoned, left alone with no one to come along and help.

*****

“The dude’s name is Simon. Do you know another Simon? That’s sort of a subtle rebuke. Where’s the other Simon that just earlier that evening said, ‘Though everyone forsake you, I won’t.’ He’s not there.

“It’s kind of a rebuke to the disciples that they had to go get a STRANGER from an outlying area to come and to carry the Cross; to follow Him.

“Now Simon follows Christ to Calvary and he would have gone all the way to the Cross, seen them nail the Lord Jesus to it and stand Him upright.

“You remember a Centurion stood by the Cross and after he watched what was going on, said, ‘Surely this is the Son of God.’ And at the Cross, Simon had what I would call a Barabbas experience.

*****

“Mark 15:21 says, ‘And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.’

“Mark’s readers know who Simon is. He’s the father of Alexander and Rufus. That little addition wouldn’t have made any sense if nobody knew who Alexander and Rufus were. You see that?

“Mark is writing to the ‘little flock’ in Israel (the remnant of Believers), and they understand who this character is. Something happened to him when he followed Jesus to that Cross that lasted.

“It’s a fascinating thing when you go through the Book of Acts. Acts 2:5 says, ‘And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.’ Verse 10 says, ‘Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes.’

“Cyrene is where Simon’s from. Look at Acts 6:9: ‘Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen.’

“Notice they’re there; these guys were a part of the ‘little flock’!

“Acts 11: 19-20 says, [19] Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.
[20] And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus.

“You see the message got back home when Simon went back and the message took root and bore fruit in that little flock.

“Acts 13:1 says, ‘Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.’

“Look at there! These guys, the message didn’t just take root, the message took such root that there were people in Cyrene who stayed up with the program and the ADVANCE in the program.

*****

“Obviously Rufus and his family were some of those who were known to Paul, appreciated by Paul.

“Listen, I believe that the Apostle Paul wanted to know every detail of the life and person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He and Luke, one of the biographers of the Savior, were best of friends. At the very end of his life, Luke’s with him.

“You know Paul would have picked their brain like you pick fish bones! It’s Paul in Acts 20:35 that tells you something nobody recorded anywhere else in Scripture says. He writes, ‘And to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

 “How did Paul know that? He’s inquisitive about the life of His Savior and about the PERSON of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“It’s Paul who says, ‘though we have known Christ after the flesh.’ When did Paul ever know Jesus after the flesh? Paul had an interest. Rufus and his mom and family would have been somebody Paul would have wanted to know. And Rufus and his mother were obviously open to the advance in the program that came, like Apollos was.”

God wrote book of your DNA

Three thousand years ago David knew something about what happened to him when he was first created.

He writes in Psalm 139: 15-16, “My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
[16] Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”

Jordan explains, “This passage is really talking about the creation of man, Adam. He’s saying, ‘All of my members were written out and then the book just continuously developed as I grew.'

*****

“I remember back when Bill Clinton first became president and the news had just come out about the human genome program, Clinton, according to this magazine article I read, took the whole day to learn all this information.

“The human genome system is where we get our understanding of DNA. DNA is the basic genetic structure of your makeup. What they’ve learned about it is that DNA really is not a random bunch of garbage in a can. DNA has letters that, when you put them together, form words that when you put them together form sentences. They have stops, or periods, and paragraph marks and it literally reads like a book.

“Scientists can only read 7-8 percent of it, but before you were anything except that itty-bitty one set of 23 chromosomes of mama and one set of 23 chromosomes of dad, joined together to make the 46-chromosome package you are, that package already said my eyes were going to be blue, my skull was going to be a certain way, I was going to have my daddy’s hands . . .

*****

“So everything about you is originally written in that little genetic patch kit that we call DNA. It’s not a random sequencing but rather it really is like a book. That’s what David calls it. But notice he calls it ‘thy book.’

“Who really wrote the book of DNA that makes up you? God did. What they’re doing now is they’re trying to read it, and you know what else, they’re trying to REWRITE it.

“You know what GMOs are? Genetically modified. They take that DNA and they read it and they rewrite it.

“I say, ‘Wow, isn’t that interesting, because God wrote another book.’ I think, ‘Well, if God wrote the book of my DNA and then He wrote another Book' . . . Isaiah says, ‘Seek ye out the book of the Lord and read.’

“When I’m seeking out the Book of the Lord and reading, what am I really going to be reading? The divine DNA of God’s life. Jesus said, ‘The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life.’ So the divine DNA is in the Book!

*****

“Just look at your Bible a minute. What do the four first letters of Genesis say? Oh, isn’t that interesting. Genesis 5:1 says, ‘The book of the generations.’ Now I’ve got a book of genes! Do you know that’s the first time the word ‘book’ shows up in the Bible? Think of that; the first time a book shows up in the Bible it’s a book of genes! It’s a book of DNA!

“Look at Luke 8:11: ‘Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.’ In that little plant seed is the DNA of the plant; everything it’s going to be. What’s that verse say the seed is in the parable? The Word of God.

“So there’s DNA for the plant and it’s all in that seed and then it’s just going to continuously manifest itself as it grows and that is the Word of God. The DNA is in the Word of God.

“In Acts 12 it says ‘the Word of God GREW and multiplied.’ That’s what life does. It grows. So God’s made that connection.

*****

“Your spine divides your body into two parts; a left side and right side. If you’re right-handed, your right hand is dominate; it’s stronger. Your left hand is weaker. What your spine does is divide you into a weak side and a strong side. Twelve ribs on one side and twelve on the other.

“Your Bible has a spine. Do you know there are 33 bones in your spine? There’s a spine that goes down the middle of my Bible that divides it into two sides. What does the Bible say about the law? ‘It was weak through your flesh.’

“Paul says, ‘Be strong in the grace that’s in Christ Jesus.’ So where’s the strength going to be? I say, ‘Hmm.’

“There are 66 books in your Bible and if you divide 66 by 2 you get 33. There’s your spine. There are 1,189 chapters in the Bible. Divided by two that’s 594 and a half.

“The middle chapter of the Bible is Psalm 117: ‘O praise the LORD, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people.
[2] For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the LORD endureth for ever. Praise ye the LORD.’

“If you count the words in those two verses you get 33. There’s a comparison between the spine of your Bible and your backbone.

“How old was the Lord Jesus Christ when He died? You remember Moses said to God, ‘Show me your glory,’ and God responded, ‘You can’t see my face because if you do you’ll die, so I’ll show you my backside.’ That passage is found in Exodus 33.

*****

“You have 46 chromosomes (23 from mom and 23 from dad) and you get this DNA package of genetics that make you.

“By the way, God used two languages to write the Bible. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet and 24 letters in the Greek alphabet. If you add 22 and 24 you get 46.

“Genesis 2:23 says, ‘And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’

“There’s the quote about the one flesh, the joining of the 23 and 23--the producing of 46 chromosomes that is able to make a kid--and there they become one.

“If you go to I Corinthians 6, Paul talks about that one flesh and how, in human terms, he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Our birth into Christ, being begotten by the gospel, to produce one spirit, Paul says it’s a parallel in the physical realm. The 46 chromosomes is a parallel to our spiritual identity in Christ. He just keeps connecting those two things together.

*****

“You know what the 46^th book in the Bible is? I Corinthians 3:16 says, ‘Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?’ I Corinthians 6:19 says, ‘What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?’

“The 46^th book talks about you and I being the temple. The place where God lives. He lives inside of your DNA. It’s there He exists.

“When Herod built the temple that Israel used in the time of Christ and the time of Paul, you know how long it took him to build it? John 2:20, ‘Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?’

“When God told Moses to build the tabernacle, it was all made out of skin, but it’s got a structure to it. It’s got boards and stuff to hold up the skins, and he put four posts in the beginning of it out here which match the four pairs of the genetic code. Down one side of it, the north side, he put 20 boards, and down the south side he put 20 boards, and across the back side he put six boards.

“In I Kings 7, when Solomon built the temple, he built a porch and put two pillars with lilies on top. You want to guess how tall each one of those pillars were? Each one was 23 cubits. When he went inside and built the staircase, it’s called a winding stairs. Have you ever seen a picture of DNA? It’s got two pillars on the outside and winding stairs on the inside.

*****

“Are you familiar with Fibonacci numbers? These are some of the great tools of percentages people use for investing in the stock market and all. Einstein said the purest science is math. Did you know that Fibonacci numbers produce that DNA spiral?

“With every person your ear is in the pattern of a Fibonacci circle. Why is that? Because God wrote it in His book of DNA when He wrote you. There are ordinances and patterns to it. There’s a connection between our DNA and the DNA of the Bible; that’s my point to you.

“Proverbs 3 says that when God created the heaven and the earth, He used wisdom, knowledge and understanding and put it in His creation. Paul says ‘in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’

“There’s this connection and the reason it’s important to me is that the DNA of the Lord Jesus Christ, His life lives in me and that life is in His Word, so there’s this spiritual DNA of the Lord Jesus Christ that lives in me that’s designed to live out through me and there’s a connection in there. And I say, ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in your richly.’ ”

******

Personal account for today:

According to my mom, my dad’s life was starting to “spiral out of control” when he decided to become a missionary. He was losing a lot of money in the stock market and, with his daily drug habit, he was doing crazy things like showing up in the middle of the night with a flashlight to visit patients admitted at Akron General and Akron City Hospital.

A close friend  of my parents and a leader at their church, Holy Trinity Lutheran of Akron, where my dad sang in the choir, had already approached my dad about his drinking when I was a baby and that led to my dad quitting the church.

Shortly afterward, a patient of my dad's, the nationally known Rev. Dallas Billington of Akron Baptist Temple, credited at the time with having the “world’s largest Sunday school," led my dad to Christ, even giving him his own Bible, and my dad finally became saved at the age of 44.

A year or so later he sold our big family home in Fairlawn Heights and we left Akron for the jungles of Ecuador, entire family in tow, including our French poodle, Mimi. My mom recalls, “I thought, 'Well, if this is what it takes to get him turned around' . . . ” Little did she know what trouble was ahead.

(to be continued tomorrow)

'When you get free from it, and it's just you'

A relative of mine may have to leave her long-standing church (Church of Christ) if they decide to allow gay marriage, something they are currently pondering. As it is, her beloved pastor announced the other month he was retiring after 20-some years at the church. Everyone suspects it is because of the possibility of the church board endorsing gays.

Jordan said awhile back he caught a radio show on WYLL in which the pastor of a Church of Christ church in a northern Chicago suburb participated in a panel discussion among preachers.

“That poor guy didn’t believe anything,” recalled Jordan. “He was trying to explain how Jesus really didn’t mind contradicting the Bible and that He didn’t really believe the Bible!”

When the radio show host asked, “Do you believe Jesus was God?” the preacher’s response was, “Well, I believe that Jesus believed the scriptures of his god.”

By that statement alone, explained Jordan, “It says the guy must believe Jesus had a god, somebody else had a god too and the rest must all be gods.

“That’s liberalism. It’s just unbelief, plain and simple. By the way, most preachers think like that guy. When you come to look at the reality of that, there’s a whole lot of stuff out there in the world for God to set right.

“A guy like that fellow takes that passage (in Luke 21) and says, ‘See, Jesus said that everything is going to be fulfilled and we know that’s 70 A.D. Everything was fulfilled in 70 A.D., therefore there’s no prophecy about vengeance and wrath yet to be fulfilled.'

"See how somebody could do that? This preacher reasoned that even though Jesus taught the Sabbath law, Christ determined, ‘I can heal a man on the Sabbath and that’s more important than keeping what the Bible says.’

“I’m thinking, ‘The six-year-olds in our kindergarten would be able to answer that better than that!’ And this was a guy they introduced as ‘Dr. somebody.’ You know, the answer he didn’t have is how to ‘rightly divide’ the Word.”

*****

Several years ago, a longtime Independent Baptist preacher in North Carolina learned from Jordan’s cable TV show about how to study the Bible dispensationally. As a result, he decided to drop his association with the Baptist denomination.

He called Jordan up, saying, “You know, I need to figure out how to do the paperwork on this name change because we’re not under the Baptists anymore. Do we need to go to the IRS and get our name changed? Is there somebody we can go get under?”

Jordan said he told him, “No, you weren’t in the denomination before. You were an independent church; you’re still an independent church. All you got to do is change your name.”

People have the idea denominations control things and that’s what religion is about. Even when you just carry the name of a denomination you’re under the yoke of it.

Jordan explains, “You know when you get free from that, and it’s just you, well, that’s almost an inexplicable thing in religion. It’s so different to the ears of the world out there.”

******

Personal installment for today:

When my dad first told my mom he was going to become a missionary doctor in Ecuador, taking all of us with him, my mom says he explained, “I’ve got to do something for God before I die.”

My dad was someone who thought he had heart trouble because of chest pain that was really just due to anxiety, probably from all the pills he took.

All through my childhood he would tell us kids individually and corporately, “I’m not going to be around much longer.”

*****

I never knew my dad had an addiction to uppers and downers until after he died (at almost 79 years old) and my mom told me—I was in my mid-30s!

Now,  when I was a kid I would see my dad take a pill here and there, and he did always carry a bunch in his pants pocket, but he said they were for certain ailments.

He tried to push pills on me, my brother and sister when we were in our teens, but I truly believe he had good intentions. None of us would really take them—we just pretended to take them when he was watching.

The thing is I never knew growing up why my dad would be in such bad moods. He could be in a real good mood and then, without any warning, turn into a bad mood. This could all happen in a five-minute period sometimes. He could be so volatile that you never knew where you stood with him and I personally was afraid of him on and off all through my teens. I never really ever stopped being afraid of him until just a few years before his death and after my mom divorced him after 31 years of marriage.

What bothered me the most was how he could be mean to my mother, and I would hear her cry so often at night behind her locked bedroom door. More than a few times I actually prayed to God that my dad would die.

I admitted this to my brother about 10 years ago now and he said he did the same thing at least a few times!!

(new article tomorrow) 

Atheists and drug dealers

At a Bible conference in Michigan once it was reported that a man who was a Grace Believer decided he was an atheist. One of the reasons he gave was, “I just can’t believe a good God would allow evil in the world.”

Jordan explains, “That’s a common idea of people who don’t want to believe in God. The problem with that it is it assumes that a good God could have no reason for allowing evil to happen.

People think, ‘Why, I wouldn’t!’ That’s the problem! It’s your pride. That thinking assumes you are omniscient and knew every possible reason for everything that happens.”

*****

“You’ll never meet anybody who’s an honest atheist. When I say an honest one, I mean somebody who doesn’t have an ax to grind like guys such as (Sigmund) Freud. Freud said that the reason he hated religion is because he crossed the street one day and a guy standing on the corner was preaching, ‘You’re going to go to hell if you don’t trust Christ. You’re going to burn in hell.’

“Freud spent the rest of his life trying to prove that religion was just a repressed sex drive. And he’s the guy where all you got to do is drop his name and everybody thinks, ‘Oh, you’re a real intellectual.’

*****

“You’ll never meet an honest person who spent 15 hours looking at the actual evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ say they don’t believe in it because, if you look at the actual evidence for the resurrection, there’s only one conclusion—He came out of the grave.

“Obviously what that means is up to you. I mean, you can put any meaning to it you want to. I read a book years ago by a Jewish rabbi who believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ based on the historical evidence, but didn’t believe He was the Messiah; he didn’t trust Him. He didn’t get the meaning that God attached to it.

“But when you recognize that there’s one man who went into death and came out, and that there’s objective, physical, historical, demonstrable evidence that you could go into a court of law with and prove it happened, well, that’s different.

“And you see that’s what Doubting Thomas came up with when he said, ‘My Lord and my God.’ He figured it out right when he saw it.

*****

(Editor’s note: I’ve decided to start putting some autobiographical data at the bottom of each post for readers who want to learn more about where I’m coming from as a blogger.)

My dad developed a real drinking problem shortly after he married my mom, who was a teetotaler.

When my brother was a baby my mom would get calls at 1 and 2 in the morning for her to come pick up her husband from some bar. My dad somehow got up every morning and ran his very popular private medical practice in Firestone Park.

I was a baby when my mom says my dad made the big switch from magnums of Pinot Grigio to prescription pills and injectables.

It all started when my dad approached the neighborhood pharmacist about helping out his poorer by dropping his drug prices. The pharmacist said to him, “I can’t be a doctor and you can’t be a pharmacist.”

My dad went home and thought, “Well, he can’t be a doctor but I CAN be a pharmacist.” That was all the instigation my dad needed to go out and obtain his own pharmaceutical license.

(new article tomorrow)

Sports, sports, sports

If you want illustrations of what happened to Israel biblically all you have to do is look at our culture today.

As II Peter 2:12-13, for example, sums it up: “But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

[13] And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you.”

Jordan explains, “People are sporting themselves, bragging about their wickedness/sinfulness, and if you call it into question, what do they do? You’re the enemy, not them.

“Whether it’s stealing, lying, cheating, immorality of all kinds, they sport it. You know what guys do when they sport; they’re out bragging about it. They’re out making money on it.

“Who in the world in our culture makes more money by doing less than sports people and entertainers? They contribute absolutely no ‘wealth’ to the community; they contribute entertainment.

*****

Hosea writes in Hosea 7, “They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneeded the dough, until it be leavened.
[5] In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.
[6] For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.
[7] They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me.”

“The baker can go to sleep because the die is cast,” says Jordan. “The leaven has leavened the lump. They are all hot as an oven. They’re just burning up. What are they burning up with? With the lust of depravity.

“They’re burning up with all these sinful things—the falsehoods, the thefts, the adulteries, the robbing, all of these things that have overtaken the nation. The swearing, the lying, the stealing, the killing, the committing fornication.

 

*****

 

“Hosea continues, ‘Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.’

“What happens when you get salt and pepper hair? Usually you’re becoming an old man. Here’s the old dude yet he knoweth not. Israel has become like some oblivious old man who has wasted his life and is just doddering around and doesn’t know what’s happening.

“The thieves are pickpocketing, taking his stuff and he’s just like some old man. When it says he knoweth not, it’s not like he has Alzheimer’s. He’s just oblivious to what’s happening.

“Verse 10 is the problem: ‘And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him for all this.’

“In spite of all their problems, their pride keeps them from hearkening. The middle letter of the word ‘sin’ is the same letter that is the middle letter of the word ‘pride.’

“Right in their FACE you can see they won’t turn to the Lord because of their pride.”

Latest frontier: Brain dead to God vs. devil

The big thing today is to try and “redefine” even the most basic facts people recognize as true. It includes history, gender roles, meanings of everyday words, etc.

Just look at this passage from an op-ed column last week (written by Arthur Brooks) in the New York Times to see to what extent the media is redefining Bible words to fit its denouncement of any fundamentalist Christian ideology:

“Pope Francis’ secular admirers often stumble at his apparent preoccupation with evil. In an impromptu speech to schoolchildren in Harlem, he disconcertingly asked: 'But who is it that sows sadness, that sows mistrust, envy, evil desires? What is his name? The devil.'

“Some dismiss this as a clerical tic or South American eccentricity. It is nothing of the sort. The word 'devil' comes from the Greek verb diabolos, meaning 'slander' or 'attack.' And 'demon' comes directly from the Greek root meaning 'to divide.'

"For Francis, happiness comes from unity, both with God and with one another. Unhappiness comes from division from either — which comes from the Dark One.

“Many people around the world have found themselves attracted to the pope’s warm message of unity. And well they should be — unity is in short supply in our unhappy world today. But Francis is asking for more than a mass chorus of 'Kumbaya.' He is in the hunt for the whole human soul.”

*****

The news that really got my attention the other day was how the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is experimenting with “transcranial magnetic stimulation” to physically reduce people’s belief in God!!!!

“The researchers targeted the posterior medial frontal cortex, a part of the brain located near the surface and roughly a few inches up from the forehead that is associated with detecting problems and triggering responses that address them,” explains an article posted to PsyPost.com.  

“In the study, half of the participants received a low-level 'sham' procedure that did not affect their brains, and half received enough energy to lower activity in the target brain area. Next, all of the participants were first asked to think about death, and then were asked questions about their religious beliefs and their feelings about immigrants.

“The findings, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, reveal that people in whom the targeted brain region was temporarily shut down reported 32.8% less belief in God, angels, or heaven. They were also 28.5% more positive in their feelings toward an immigrant who criticised their country.

“Dr. Keise Izuma, from the University’s Department of Psychology, said: 'People often turn to ideology when they are confronted by problems. We wanted to find out whether a brain region that is linked with solving concrete problems, like deciding how to move one’s body to overcome an obstacle, is also involved in solving abstract problems addressed by ideology.'

“This interest in the brain basis of ideology led the team to focus on religion and nationalism.

“Dr. Izuma added: 'We decided to remind people of death because previous research has shown that people turn to religion for comfort in the face of death. As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death.'

“The investigators asked participants to respond to both negative and positive emotional aspects of religion and of nationalism. Specifically, they rated belief in the Devil, demons, and Hell, in addition to God, angels, and heaven. All potential participants were pre-screened to make sure that they held religious convictions before beginning the experiment.

"With regard to nationalistic ideology, the participants read two essays ostensibly written by recent immigrants. One essay was extremely complimentary toward the United States, and the other essay was extremely critical.

"The investigators found that the magnetic stimulation had the greatest effect on reactions to the critical author.

“ 'We think that hearing criticisms of your group’s values, perhaps especially from a person you perceive as an outsider, is processed as an ideological sort of threat,' said Dr. Izuma.

“ 'One way to respond to such threats is to double down on your group values, increasing your investment in them, and reacting more negatively to the critic,' he continued.

“ 'When we disrupted the brain region that usually helps detect and respond to threats, we saw a less negative, less ideologically motivated reaction to the critical author and his opinions.'

“Dr. Colin Holbrook, from UCLA and the lead author of the paper, added: ‘These findings are very striking, and consistent with the idea that brain mechanisms that evolved for relatively basic threat-response functions are repurposed to also produce ideological reactions. However, more research is needed to understand exactly how and why religious beliefs and ethnocentric attitudes were reduced in this experiment.’

“The scientists say that whether we’re trying to clamber over a fallen tree that we find in our path, find solace in religion, or resolve issues related to immigration, our brains are using the same basic mental machinery.”

Edification is No. 1 issue with God

Type into Google the meaning of the Bible word “edification” and one of the top definitions, given by Vocabulary.com, says:

“If something is for your edification, watch out! It means it's designed to improve you in some way, whether morally, educationally, or spiritually. Originally edification had a strictly religious sense, in the meaning of ‘building up of the soul,’ from the Latin term aedificationem, for ‘construction’ or ‘building.’ From the same word we get ‘edifice,’ meaning a building, especially a large and imposing one. So, you see, edification is all about efforts to build you into a more sound human being. Children can have a particular dislike for TV shows or books that are considered edifying by their parents or teachers.”

*****

Here’s a great outtake from a recent Sunday morning sermon Jordan gave on godly edification and how it is THE most important thing in a Believer’s life:

“The whole issue of edification, of building, tells you there is a structure, and if there’s a structure, there’s a pattern. If there’s a cornerstone, there’s a pattern God’s producing.

“II Timothy 1:13 says, ‘Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.’

“That word ‘sound’ is like the idea of healthy, life-giving. Someone has great soundness of flesh. Look at the guy who got healed in Acts 3 and you read about what soundness he had. If you want to have words that will produce healthy spiritual life, there’s a FORM to them.

“Galatians 4:19 says, ‘My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.’ Notice there is a form, there’s a mold, a model, a structure of Jesus Christ that He wants built into their inner man and Paul wants Christ formed in them. He wants to erect a structure in their inner man.

“Acts 20:32 says, ‘And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.’

“What is it that’s going to build him up? The word of His grace. Where do you learn that? You learn that from Paul.

“II Corinthians 10:8 says, ‘For though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction, I should not be ashamed.’

“You know who made Paul your apostle? Jesus Christ did. What did He give it to him for? Edification.

“You’ll never experience the godly edification of your inner man (edification based on the way God is doing it) if you don’t recognize the authority of the Apostle Paul God meant for your life and, instead, you’re back following Moses, the earthly ministry of Christ or the Pentecostal ministry.

“Paul says, ‘As a wise master builder I have laid the foundation.’ There’s a blueprint Paul lays down in his epistles that produces godly edification.

*****

“If you look around you and wonder why you have Christians tossed to and fro by every kind of wind of doctrine, every kind of nitwittery idea there is out there, looking for ways to answer questions that the Word of God answers clearly for them, it’s because they don’t recognize that ONE simple issue of about where to get their information in the Bible.

“Paul stresses in Colossians 2, 6] As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:
[7] Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
[8] Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

“It doesn’t come by osmosis, folks! It comes by studying. It comes by ‘giving attendance to reading.’ That’s why when you come to church here our purpose is to help you study on your own!

*****

Come back to Romans 1: 11-12 because this is the key. Paul writes, ‘For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;
[12] That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.’

“In I Corinthians 14, the spiritual gift that established people was the gift of prophecy, the gift of teaching God’s Word. His goal is that they would be established.

“What does it mean to be established? Verse 12. Establishment or godly edification means that you and I have the mutual faith that Paul had. Now, when you have something mutual you have it in common. You share it equally.

“Paul tells Timothy, ‘And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.’

“In other words, when you understand exactly what Paul understood, you have the mutual faith, and when you have that understanding, you have establishment. You’ve been stabilized and you are stablished in the faith. That’s what Paul says he wants you to have.

“As he’s finishing the Book of Romans, he says in Romans 16:25, ‘Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.’

“By the way, I love the way he ends Romans. At the end of verse 20, he says, ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen,’ and then he keeps writing. He writes the same thing at the end of verse 24 but then he keeps writing. He can’t quit! He looks at the clock and he says, ‘I gotta stop, but, oh, I gotta keep going.’

“Verse 25 is saying, ‘God has the power to do what He says He’s going to do, to stabilize you according to my gospel.’ Paul’s saying, ‘Here’s the methodology, the form, the pattern that’s going to produce establishment.’

“You don’t go there by going to your closet and praying or some preacher anointing you. You get there by the intake of sound doctrine according to the form, the pattern that produces edification.

*****

“Hebrews 5 says, ‘For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat . . . strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.’

“A babe is somebody who’s unskilled in the word of righteousness. If you’re saved, you somewhere in that spectrum between milk and strong meat.

“The key for you is to grow toward that maturity level whereby you can discern in every detail of your life how to live for God’s glory; how to walk in that personal privacy of faith where you can take His Word and, for yourself--not like a naïve baby, but as a mature adult--walk and resolve and deal with whatever you face in life.

“Faith is a thing that requires personal privacy ‘with a heart that believes.’ That’s why psychological techniques destroy faith. That’s one of the great problems of getting people to walk an aisle or to do some ritual because it clouds the issue of faith, when you learn as an adult simply to be sufficient in who God’s made you in Christ.

*****

“I just want to leave you with this one passage. II Corinthians 5: 9-10 says, ‘Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
[10] For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.’

“The things that you do IN your body, that’s what edification is. You understand that? When you get to the judgment seat of Christ, and  be assured you will face Him and give account of your life in time and what you’ve done with it, the issue is not going to be how much money you put in the collection plate, how many tracts you passed out, how many times you prayed, how many bottles of booze you didn’t drink, how many times you didn’t cuss out your neighbor, how many times you didn’t beat your husband, etc.

“The issue’s going to be what is your level of edification. You see the main thing that God gets out of your life is the person you become right there. The main thing you’re going to carry out of this life is the person you become because that’s the person you take into eternity.”

Transformation is to truly believe, 'He's ALIVE!'

In II Corinthians 3, Paul talks about the Corinthians being the living epistles. He explains, “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”

Jordan says, “It struck me one day, ‘If they were the epistles ministered by Paul, didn’t Paul write some epistles? In essence, he’s saying that you and I are really Romans through Philemon. That’s what He writes in your heart.’

“Now, God doesn’t automatically write it in there. It’s what He writes in your heart as you take in that truth. It’s the intake.

“Paul said, ‘The outward man perishes but the inward man is renewed day by day.’ How’s it renewed?  You’re renewed in the SPIRIT of your mind. Paul says, ‘And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.’

“How often should your mind be being renewed? DAY by DAY. It’s that daily intake, that moment-by- moment application of the truth of God’s Word in the details of your life. That’s really called PRAYER.

“It’s looking at everything that happens in your life and thinking before God; talking to God about what’s going on, and what His Word says about what’s going on, and how His Word can be applied to that. How what His Word says your attitude should be about that insult, that temptation, that rejection, etc.

“You say, ‘Well, I don’t know what it says.’ But you do know. Because when you don’t know you do know. When you don’t know, what do you do? You go find out.

“Now all of a sudden I need to know how to ‘rightly divide.’ You wouldn’t have to talk people into rightly dividing if they lived like THAT!

*****

“You see how this thing just becomes life; becomes living? Why? Because He is our life. That’s how He IS your life. Folks, these are not mindless clichés designed for preachers to have something to talk about and you go, ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh.’

“This is the living reality for the way God made your soul, your inner man, to function and a guy like me is trying to say them in 15 different ways so that maybe one of them will, ‘DING!,’ turn on the light for you and make it real.

“If it isn’t real in your life, it’s just because you haven’t believed it; the verse says the ‘word WORKS in you that believe.’

“You can say, ‘I don’t really care,’ but there will be a day when you do. You can say, ‘It’s not for me.’ There will be a day when it will be for you. Just remember some little old nut told you there was an answer and get in Romans through Philemon and find it.

*****

“The expression ‘living God’ occurs a number of times in the pastoral epistles and you can trace that title through the Bible. The ‘living God’ is a title given to God, the God of the Bible, in relationship to Him actively working and doing things. He’s put in comparison to the ‘dead god.’ At Ephesus, there’s the 'religion' god, Diana.

“What I’m talking about is the opposite of religion. It’s the living God who does all those things in the Old Testament. When David goes to kill Goliath, he says, ‘Who is this that defies the armies of the living God?!' He's saying, 'We got a God who can go out and take care of this bird! What are you guys sitting here quaking in your boots for?!’

“Over and over, Paul understood who God was. That’s why he wrote in Romans, ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the POWER of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.’

“Paul understood his message, the gospel of the grace of God, the gospel of life in Christ Jesus DID change things and God DID work. He’s the Savior who comes and provides life, and because I’m trusting in the living God, all this stuff, the wrath of the world and the wrath of the religious system, just comes all down on me.

*****

“Now, if you’re trusting the living God, the God whose LIFE is the issue, you’re not trusting in yourself.

“You abandon all of your trust in your own righteousness and you trust God’s righteousness. You abandon all your trust in your religion and the ‘fair show of the flesh’ and all that and when you do that, you begin to suffer the persecution of the religious system, of the world, because you’re telling the world they’re lost and there’s no hope.

“You know, at Christmastime it’s, ‘Peace on earth, good will to men,’ and then you stand up and say, ‘There will be no peace on this planet until Jesus Christ comes back as the prince of peace.’

“ ‘Oh, geez. What kind of intolerant, bigoted message is that?!’ You look at somebody and say, ‘You’re lost, and you can trust in a baby in a manger and give gifts and be good to people all you want to but that baby came in a manger and there is no more manger, no baby crying in swaddling clothes. There’s  a Cross that you have to go to because of your sin. You’re separated from God.’

“You tell people that and you get very different reactions. Paul said, ‘If I preach circumcision, why am I suffering persecution?’ Well, if you preach circumcision, some operation you can do to get favor with God, you wouldn’t be persecuted, because you’re telling people, ‘I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay, let’s just do it and God’ll be happy.’ There’s no offense to the flesh in that!”

 (new article tomorrow)

Only a Person could fill Spirit's job

The Greek word for "comforter" is “parakletos,” meaning “come alongside.” John 14:16 says, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.”

Jordan says, “Notice it says He shall give you ANOTHER Comforter. The Comforter, when He comes, is going to replace one who was already there. Who was that? The Lord Jesus Christ.

"He said, ‘If I go away, He’ll replace me.’ So who did the Comforter replace? The Holy Spirit is given His own personal office--His own personal ID--that only a person could fill.

*****

Revelation 2 talks about the w-o-r-d-s that the Spirit spoke unto them. Galatians 4:6 says, "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father."

“It’s that spirit of sonship, but He SPEAKS," explains Jordan. "In Romans 8, we read that He makes ‘intercession for the saints.’ Well, that’s something a person does!

"In verse 34, you see the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God making intercession. The same characteristics that are identified as true of Jesus are identified as true of the Holy Spirit.

“Paul writes in Romans 15:30, ‘Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.’

“Notice there are some things that the Spirit loves. He has the capacity to love things. He’s a person. That’s why He can be grieved. That’s why He can have these things happen to Him because of His personality.

"He does the things that PEOPLE do. He intercedes, He gives testimony, He bears witness, He teaches.

"He’s a person outside of the Father and the Son; a distinct member of the godhead. Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit have always existed and are before all things. He was there before there WAS any creation.

*****

"When it says that ‘by him were all things made,’ one of the modern bible translations changes it to ‘all OTHER things were made.’ But that’s not what it said. There’s no OTHER there. If He made everything, then every part of creation is different from Him, because He was there before creation and made all of creation.

"If He is not eternally, absolutely God, then somewhere along the line He was made and you couldn’t say that He made all things if He WAS made. So that’s a great verse.

“Paul, when he wrote this, wasn’t trying to teach the issues of the deity of Christ; he assumes that, just as we do. He’s teaching the ramifications of it, but you don’t want to miss the fact that it’s there.

“It says, ‘And he is the head of the body, the church.’ The reason He’s made the head of the body, and the key there, is that in all things He can have preeminence. Not just the things in the earth but the things in heaven too.

“ ‘Admired in all them that believe.’ There’s an issue of what we do now and how our conduct now affects the admiration He gains through us out there. That’s what verse 11’s talking about. ‘Worthy of this calling.’

“Notice He’s praying for them that God would count them worthy. Now, when you count something worthy, you identify it and approve it for something.

*****

“The calling is not salvation. What people do in theology is they take these terms out of the Bible and apply them and put theological meanings to them and they get them all messed up.

“The calling is what happens when you are saved. In Christ you have a calling, which is what God is doing with the Body of Christ. Why did He form it? What did He intend for it to do?

“For some members of the Body of Christ, there’s going to be a different level of admiration than for others, and there’s this privileged status that’s going to be awarded to us for Christ’s sake--not us but for Him for how much of our lives is filled up with Him!

“How much of the activity in your life . . . At the Judgment Seat of Christ, you’re not going to face your sins—the Cross took care of them. You’re never going to have to face God with your failure and have to deal with that. The Cross takes care of the guilt and ALL the payment for everything.

“As a child of God and a saint of the most high God, as one who was ‘created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them,’ how much time did you focus on in your life on being who we are in Christ?

“When you get to the Judgment Seat of Christ, all the time you were walking after the flesh--walking in your own way, walking in denomination or religious tyranny or performance or whatever (something other than it being Christ in you living through you) . . . in essence when you get there and you go through it, you’re going to come out on the other side with just a blank in those areas. Empty places.

“And what you lose, as detailed in I Corinthians 3, is the reward that you could have had by having your life filled up with Him. Well, if you fill your life up NOW, do you get a reward now from that?

“You learn an intimacy with the Lord and an appreciation of His grace, and there are some rewards right now in your personal fellowship with the Lord, your personal maturity and your growing and being able to be comforted with the comfort of God.

“The being 'counted worthy' here has to do with the reigning that we’ll have, the functioning that we’ll have with Him in the ages to come.

“I’ve always loved that verse in I Peter 3:4 where he says, ‘Let’s let the time of the past suffice for the works of the flesh.’ The works of the flesh are a waste of your life in time.

“You come away from here with the reward; with the status and the capacity of serving Him. It’s the capacity for Him to be admired in all them that believe. We sing that song, ‘It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.’

"And when you see Him get glorified and admired in all the saints, then you’ll say, ‘Wow, it certainly is!’ And it’s that work of faith with power."