When you feel sadness coming...think on these things.

 

With so many things going on in the world, you may feel that things are hopeless, and going through depression as a result.  There are people who are depressed because of how they view life. 7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he Proverbs 23:7a. You may feel that everyone else, around you, is blessed except for you. I want to give some hope. The only way you can have a change of heart is to receive the truth.

Matthew 5(GWT) When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up a mountain and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them:

3 “Blessed are those who recognize they are spiritually helpless.
    The kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
4 Blessed are those who mourn.
    They will be comforted.
5 Blessed are those who are gentle.
    They will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God’s approval.
    They will be satisfied.
7 Blessed are those who show mercy.
    They will be treated mercifully.
8 Blessed are those whose thoughts are pure.
    They will see God.
9 Blessed are those who make peace.
    They will be called God’s children.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for doing what God approves of.
    The kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you,
    persecute you,
        lie, and say all kinds of evil things about you because of me.
12 Rejoice and be glad because you have a great reward in heaven!
    The prophets who lived before you were persecuted in these ways.

Our joy should come from the Lord and nothing or no one else because, if you rely on anything else, your joy will be temporary or constantly up and down. If your joy is in the Lord, your joy will be forever. It doesn't mean that we will never have days were we feel sadness, pain, or have days that we mourn...over our sins. (By the way, to mourn over your sins, is a blessing. It is then that you can turn away form your sins). The Lord is faithful to forgive. Once we realize how much we are loved, by God, and the price that was paid to keep us, we can't help but be overjoyed and blessed. When you feel sadness coming...think on these things.

Philippians 4: 4-9 4Always be joyful in the Lord! I'll say it again: Be joyful! 5Let everyone know how considerate you are. The Lord is near. 6Never worry about anything. But in every situation let God know what you need in prayers and requests while giving thanks. 7Then God's peace, which goes beyond anything we can imagine, will guard your thoughts and emotions through Christ Jesus.

8Finally, brothers and sisters, keep your thoughts on whatever is right or deserves praise: things that are true, honorable, fair, pure, acceptable, or commendable. 9Practice what you've learned and received from me, what you heard and saw me do. Then the God who gives this peace will be with you.

God bless you.

Hallelujah Chorus Merry Christmas!

The book "How to make a Negro Christian"

 I saw this post, on Facebook, on this wonderful Christmas morning. You know the devil hates the fact that we are celebrating the birth of Christ. He want to try to ruin the happiness of people as much as possible. I did not expect to receive this post today.

I get so sick and tired of the same ol' complaint and that is, that "Black people" should not believe in "Christianity" because it came from the slave masters and that they took our religion away from us. So I want to share with you what the post said and my reply.

Here is my reply:

 It is no doubt that Christianity was presented to the African slaves in the most gross way possible. There is no doubt to that. Does that mean that there is a problem with Christianity? Certainly not. If I present my parents to a society in a gross way, does that mean there is something wrong with my parents? Certainly not. First of all, people need to understand that Christianity is not a "White" religion. If you want to put a race to it, then lets keep it real, salvation came from the Jews first, and then the Gentiles. The gentiles also includes White people. Did Africa know about Christ before the American slavery? Of course they did. Did all of Africa accept Christ? No, just like not all of America accept Christ. Those people who did this to the Africans will receive their just payment for what they have done, and their punishment will be eternal. Do anyone else want to join those "White folks" who did this? I should hope not. Everyone must repent and be saved if they do not want to join those White folks who were not saved and did this to the African people.

should we fight?

Someone posted this on their Facebook wall. 

This is where I stand on that. My reply:

 I love David's attitude....1st Samuel 17:26 David asked the men who were standing near him, "What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and gets rid of Israel's disgrace? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should challenge the army of the living God?"... God equiped righteous men to be warriors. Although it is true that only love can kill hate, not all will accept love. Not all accept Christ who is love. It is because of love that we do not tolerate evil. It is because of love that we stand up for justice. It is because of love that we fight. The problem that I've seen is that people have grown cold. Hate has entered into the hearts of men who are supposed to be for God. We must get this straight, fighting does not always equal hate, and sometimes not fighting equals hate. If you have to fight, fight for righteousness, fight for justice, fight for love.

ALLOYED LOYALTIES by Andrea Schwartz

Every time you hear a lie, and every time you hear the truth, you yourself are tested.

Is it the lie or the truth which commands your attention? ~ R.J. Rushdoony

When you fail to make the Bible the starting point of thought, you end up constructing a worldview built on a faulty foundation. Couple that with man’s sinful nature and the wiles of the devil, and you have a recipe for a cultural malignancy that chokes the life out of people. When the Bible is not the focal point of life and the basis for instruction and behavior, the curses outlined in Deuteronomy 28:15-68 result.²

There was a time in our nation’s history when the Bible was the presuppositional foundation of culture, even if it was not consistently followed. The Bible served to create a context of life, because it was recognized as thetext of life. Webster’s 1828Dictionary reflects this fact.

TEXT, noun [Latintextus, woven.]

1. A discourse or composition on which a note or commentary is written. Thus we speak of thetext or original of the Scripture, in relation to the comments upon it. Infinite pains have been taken to ascertain and establish the genuine original text.

2. A verse or passage of Scripture which a preacher selects as the subject of a discourse.

3. Any particular passage of Scripture, used as an authority in argument for proof of a doctrine. In modern sermons, texts of Scripture are not as frequently cited as they were formerly.

4. In ancient law authors, the four Gospels, by way of eminence.

Phrases such as, “do unto others,” and “follow the Golden Rule,” were part of the vernacular because Jesus Christ had yet to be systematically removed from the public square. While faithfulness to the Word of God was not practiced flawlessly, it was most often preached, sometimes fervently, sometimes nominally.

Today we face a different situation. Because many pastors strive not to offend their congregations or visitors, many who profess belief in Christ merely know some things about the Bible rather than having made it a priority to understand it and its implications. They fail to comprehend or embrace it as the command word from God given as the instruction for holiness in day-to-day living. Biblical literacy is at such a low point that erroneous phrases that have no root in Scripture have become entrenched in “Christian talk.” To name a few: “Hate the sin; love the sinner,” “We are not under law but under grace,” “Isn’t it good that God is patient with us even though we fail to obey?” “I can always repent right before I die,” “God’s Word says not to judge,” “God will never give me more than I can handle,” etc.³

These are not gleaned from the text of Scripture. They fall into the category of pretexts and end up being justifications for not following God’s law-word.  God’s gift of the Scriptures is for the express purpose of communicating His intent for mankind.  Thus, any deviation from the Creator’s blueprint amounts to a pretext, as man determines for himself what is right and what is not (Gen. 3:5).  Webster’s definition is to the point,

PRETEXT’, noun [Latin proetextus.] Pretense; false appearance; ostensible reason or motive assigned or assumed as a color or cover for the real reason or motive.

Fallen man is full of pretextual living.  The first chapter of Romans clearly delineates that this is not due to ignorance, but rather the suppression of the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18).

When the church, entrusted with preaching the full counsel of God, and families, commissioned to raise and educate their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, fail to exercise their God-ordained duties within their God-ordained jurisdictions, generations grow up without the necessary framework from which to order and conduct their lives. When the commandments of God are not taught and internalized, relativism rules the day and faulty presuppositions become the basis for life and action. When God’s watchmen neglect their duties, the walls are easily scaled, and lies replace truth.

Deuteronomy 11:19 specifies the comprehensive manner with which the commandments of God are to be taught:

You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

The Bible does more than present God’s commandments and statutes; it contains detailed stories that demonstrate the positive consequences of faithful living and the negative penalties for disobedience. The Bible must be the text from which standards of right and wrong are established, thereby creating a context in which we are to live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

HALF TRUTH—WHOLE LIE

We have moved past the token Christianity of the last century, and now with the ridicule and caricature of things Christian, we are presented stories where the context of life within the Biblical framework is never considered. What does the context of life look like when the Word of God and the law of God are absent from a culture’s literature, film, and music, and professing believers continue to consume counterfeits? The result is a form of religion without the power thereof (2 Tim. 3:5).

Many Christian parents judge modern media based on the rating scale of G, PG, PG-13, R, and X. Because an orthodox Christian worldview is absent among most churchgoers, foul language, nudity, and sexual innuendo end up being the only disqualifiers for what is acceptable for Christians and their children to view.⁴ Rarely do Christians examine the storyline, characters, and underlying ethics of a story on the basis of God’s law-word.

Some of the biggest box-office successes for both children and adults, while they may not contain abusive language or immodesty, suffer fatally because they eliminate the premise that man’s chief end is to glorify God and worship Him alone. In fact, God is completely absent from the lives of the characters, who sin without negative consequences and manage quite well without a fear of the Lord. In other words, these films dish out lies, and if some aspect of truth is communicated, it is not attributed to Jesus Christ as the source of truth. Even well-meaning attempts at depicting Christianity favorably are hindered because they do not do so straightforwardly.⁵ The net result is that the consumers of such media end up being double-minded in their orientation to life and their responsibilities to the Kingdom of God. R. J. Rushdoony notes,

To be “double-minded” (or, literally, two-souled, or two-minded) means to be “unstable in all (our) ways” (James 1:8); it means an inability to function, and it prevents us from receiving anything from the Lord (James 1:7). The double-minded man is one who halts between two opinions, who wants the advantages of both but the liabilities of neither. The problem with the double-minded is not that he has two substances, mind and body, making up his being, but that he is unwilling to commit himself openly to either one or the other of two moral decisions. He wants sin without the consequences of sin, and virtue without the responsibilities of virtue. Double-mindedness is a moral, not a metaphysical, fact.⁶

Some justify their consumption of modern media as a harmless diversion during one’s leisure time. They argue that they are able to separate the wheat from the chaff—the good from the bad in film, music and television. More often than not, this is a pretext for failing to submit the totality of their life (including their off time) to the Word of God. Indeed, the very concept of leisure itself is not Biblical in its orientation. As Rushdoony points out, leisure is not the same as rest.

Leisure is thus an attempt to escape from God’s world of law and grace. It is an attempt to ground man in his supposed autonomy. Leisure activity becomes more and more imaginative in its lawlessness, and man seeks to build his Great Community around the principle of man’s freedom from the Kingdom of Necessity, i.e., from God’s world of law. Man’s dream of rest is thus total leisure, totally free and autonomous activity outside of God, with a world of slave-machinery doing all the work. Perfect automation and perfect leisure is the goal.⁷

By allowing those at war with God to provide the entertainment and diversions of life (be they sports, music, film, or television), believers are participating in their own enslavement. The seeds sown in their thinking transfer into their speech (learning to be silent about their beliefs in the public square), and eventually they are all too willing to blindly obey despotic, statist mandates in areas such as health, education, and commerce. Would statist overreaches such as mandated vaccinations, enforced health insurance coverage, and the coercion of business owners to violate their consciences be possible if the populace had not been groomed with heavy doses of relativistic humanism?  As a culture, our consumption of relativism and our rejection of the absolutes of Scripture have left us vulnerable to tyranny and content with living in a world of escape and unreality. Rushdoony points out,

As a culture declines, it begins to lose its sense of reality and begins to seek refuge in various forms of escapism. This era of humanism is no exception. By its very dedication to modernity, to the present moment, it abandons a long-range view and that historical perspective which is so essential to balance. The self-absorption that marks a decaying culture is especially in evidence today. Metaphysics, the worldview, has given way to psychology, the inner view. As a discipline, metaphysics is in disrepute; as a faith, psychology has conquered even the pulpit, once the stronghold of theology and the cosmic view.

The roots of this change are in modern philosophy… [T]he starting point of philosophy [is] the ostensibly autonomous mind of man… a new center to the universe.⁸

REPLACEMENT STORIES

There was a time when the stories most were familiar with during their growing up years included names like: Adam and Eve, Noah, David and Goliath, Jonah, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In addition, the blasphemous practice of using the name Jesus Christ in vain was heavily frowned upon. Today, even youngsters from Christian families know more about Captain America, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Wolverine, and other superheroes, than they know about their forebears in the faith. Moreover, the disrespect that starts with the abuse of the Lord’s name, (so prevalent in all forms of media), filters down to disrespecting parents and other godly authorities. When the Creator of the universe is disregarded, is it any wonder that His earthly representatives are as well?

Biblical law demands specific penalties for certain behaviors. Murder, fornications (including adultery, incest, and homosexuality), kidnapping, theft, slander, etc., all have clearly prescribed penalties. A godly society will deal with these offenses against God and man by applying the law faithfully. In a humanistic, relativistic society, more attention is given to a law-breaker’s motives and environmental circumstances to justify overriding God’s law.  God’s law is then put on trial and pronounced guilty!

The problem with a heavy dose of humanistic entertainment, when viewed uncritically, is that the viewer ends up thinking humanistically rather than Biblically.  Consider some of your favorite movies or television programs and assess whether or not God’s law is the basis for how people deal with each other or how justice is administered. When all that is posited is another law and another god, the resultant pretexts replace God’s text with ungodly alternatives. It, in essence, becomes a negation of God.

The negation of God means that because hell and justice are denied their ultimacy, then law too is denigrated. Law ceases to represent God’s law order and becomes simply the arbitrary will of the State. The State as a law institution gives way to the state as a bureaucracy that sets its own rules and bends men to them.⁹

Humanistic media saturation coupled with statist education, breeds a culture of ostensibly Christian people who think, speak, and behave contrary to their profession of faith. The steady dose of lies (no God, no law) inevitably places them in the enemy camp, despite how saved they may consider themselves. They have missed the call to holiness and their fruits mark them as reprobates.

In Revelation 22:15, we are told that those outside God’s eternal Kingdom, those who are denied access to the tree of life, are “whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.” A preference for the lie is a mark of reprobation and of, at the very least, a strong disposition to evil.

Scripture, however, summons us to see things differently and to be different. “Ye that love the LORD, hate evil” (Ps. 97:10)…

Every time you hear a lie, and every time you hear the truth, you yourself are tested. Is it the lie or the truth which commands your attention?¹⁰

Philippians 4:8-9 gives us both a command and a promise. If we focus on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy, we can expect God’s peace. This is the path to undivided loyalty and cultural victory.

1. R. J. Rushdoony, A Word in Season, vol. 1 (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2010), p. 56.

2. U.S. presidents used to take their oath of office with their hand on the Bible opened to Deuteronomy 28 acknowledging that their actions would bring God’s blessings for obedience and His cursings for disobedience.

3. These “Christian talk” expressions amount to perversions of Scripture to satisfy a humanistic framework. [Editor’s note: the fragment of Romans 6:14 appearing in the list might seem like legitimately-quoted scripture, but denuded of its context the phrase is made to war against what precedes and follows it, thereby embodying the principle that a text out of context becomes a pretext.]

4.  How many actually live by this diminished standard is questionable.

5. There are some notable exceptions from brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick. Their films Flywheel, Facing the Giants, Fireproof, and Courageous have storylines that are deliberately Christian. Their main characters are unashamedly followers of Jesus Christ, and the films demonstrate the consequences of sin.

6. R. J. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, vol.2 (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, [1982] 2001), p. 485.

7. ibid., p. 556.

8. R. J. Rushdoony, Noble Savages (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2005), p. 93.

9. R J. Rushdoony, To Be As God (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2003), p. 210.

10. R. J. Rushdoony, A Word in Season, vol. 1 (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2010), p. 56

For more wonderful articles go to http://thekingdomdrivenfamily.com/

Give thanks to the LORD

Is Christ cruel?

This question was asked by someone on Facebook. Here's what they wrote...

Is Christ (aka Jehova aka God) cruel?

"When the Lord thy God shall drive them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, or show mercy unto them."
"I will heap mischief upon them. I will send mine arrows upon them; they shall be burned with hunger and devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction."
"I will send the tooth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust."
"The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin; the suckling also with the man of gray hairs."
"Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the stranger spoil his labor; let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children."
"And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body -- the flesh of thy sons and daughters."
"And the heaven that is over thee shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron."
"Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field."
"I will make my arrows drunk with blood."
"I will laugh at their calamity."

Did these curses, these threats, come from the heart of love or from the mouth of savagery?
Was Jehovah god or devil?
Why should we place Jehovah above all the gods?
Has man in his ignorance and fear ever imagined a greater monster?
Have the barbarians of any land, in any time, worshiped a more heartless god?

Brahma was a thousand times nobler, and so was Osiris and Zeus and Jupiter. So was the supreme god of the Aztecs, to whom they offered only the perfume of flowers. The worst god of the Hindus, with his necklace of skulls and his bracelets of living snakes, was kind and merciful compared with Jehovah.

Compared with Marcus Aurelius, how small Jehovah seems. Compared with Abraham Lincoln, how cruel, how contemptible, is this god.


Well, that is a legitimate question coming from someone who have read parts of the bible and came across these scriptures without adding the verses explaining why God did this.

What I did not do, to answer this person's questions, was acknowledge the false gods given at the bottom, but instead, focused on the question, is Christ cruel.

Since I am adding this to my blog, I am going to take this further.  

The definition of Cruel is...brutal, savage, inhuman, barbarous, brutish, bloodthirsty, murderous, vicious, sadistic, wicked, evil, fiendish, diabolical, monstrous, abominable; willfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it.


Jeremiah 17:9“The human mind is the most deceitful of all things. It is incurable. No one can understand how deceitful it is. GWT

God made this statement about ALL people. Just going by this verse, no one, is capable of understanding just how wicked we really are. It also let us know that there is no cure, that man can find on his own, to fix the problem. We can't even comprehend just how wrong we are in our thinking and in our hearts.

Mark 7:20 20 He continued, “It’s what comes out of a person that makes him unclean. 21 Evil thoughts, sexual sins, stealing, murder, 22 adultery, greed, wickedness, cheating, shameless lust, envy, cursing, arrogance, and foolishness come from within a person. 23 All these evils come from within and make a person unclean.” GWT

We've all been guilty of these things. There are other verses regarding the wickedness of man, but we only need a couple of verses to get to the point. 

You hear sayings like, "Why is it that the good die young?" "The person did not deserve to die like that." and so on. But, when someone whom we deemed as evil, die a harsh death, we find not only justice with it, but we also find satisfaction in that. So we all are given a sense of what a person deserves depending on what they have done. 

The problem with all of us is that we do not see ourselves the way that God sees us, so when we see things going on that seems cruel to us, it is because we think of ourselves as good people. It is the self centered nature in us to want to judge "happenings" by our own eyes. So when someone read where God used his sovereignty to get rid of what is wicked, and take pleasure in it (the scriptures that the person above wrote), we get upset because we do not see, the human race, as depraved. We also do not see how sin spreads like a virus that it will not only corrupt a community, it corrupts the whole world.... Don't believe me, look how much, in just the past six years, the laws have changed by a small group of people. Look how quickly sin has spread around the whole world that people are no longer able to judge sin correctly, not even some of our ministers. Our laws does not protect us from wrong anymore. The laws are set up to govern the people the right way but now, the laws protect the wrong and leaves those who are living right in jeopardy. God is so much wiser than we are. Sin must be completely destroyed!

Here is how God feels about people who are wicked...
2 Peter 3:9 9 The Lord isn’t slow to do what he promised, as some people think. Rather, he is patient for your sake. He doesn’t want to destroy anyone but wants all people to have an opportunity to turn to him and change the way they think and act. GWT
We can see here that it is not a desire of God to see anyone parish. God waited over one hundred years, after telling Noah about the flood, because of his patients not to see anyone parish. But, God being a righteous judge, fulfills His promises and rendered His judgement.

1 Timothy 2:1-4  First of all, I encourage you to make petitions, prayers, intercessions, and prayers of thanks for all people, 2 for rulers, and for everyone who has authority over us. Pray for these people so that we can have a quiet and peaceful life always lived in a godly and reverent way. 3 This is good and pleases God our Savior. 4 He wants all people to be saved and to learn the truth.  GWT

Once again, God, even unto this day, is being patient by holding back his final judgement on the world because He does not want to see anyone parish. However, a righteous judge will fulfill His promise.

So now that we see how we are in God's eyes, and how God feels about us, lets see if Christ is cruel.  

John 3:16 16 God loved the world this way: He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life.
Romans 6:23 23 The payment for sin is death, but the gift that God freely gives is everlasting life found in Christ Jesus our Lord. GWT

Every single one of us deserves the fullest punishment for the sins that we committed against God, which is eternal damnation. We are saved because of God's grace who sent His son Jesus Christ. 

What exactly did Christ do for us?

Hebrews 2:5-13 5 He didn’t put the world that will come (about which we are talking) under the angels’ control. 6 Instead, someone has declared this somewhere in Scripture:

“What is a mortal that you should remember him,
    or the Son of Man[a] that you take care of him?
7 You made him a little lower than the angels.
You crowned him with glory and honor.
8 You put everything under his control.”

When God put everything under his Son’s control, nothing was left out.

However, at the present time we still don’t see everything under his Son’s control. 9 Jesus was made a little lower than the angels, but we see him crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death. Through God’s kindness[b] he died on behalf of everyone. 10 God is the one for whom and through whom everything exists. Therefore, while God was bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was the right time to bring Jesus, the source of their salvation, to the end of his work through suffering.

Jesus Became One of Us to Help Us

11 Jesus, who makes people holy, and all those who are made holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus isn’t ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. 12 He says,

“I will tell my people about your name.
I will praise you within the congregation.”

13 In addition, Jesus says,

“I will trust him.”

And Jesus says,

“I am here with the sons and daughters God has given me.” GWT

To put is bluntly...Jesus saved our life. God took the full punishment that was intended for us to suffer, and placed it all on Jesus Christ until He was completely satisfied with the punishment that was due to all of us. Jesus was faithful in completing it. Jesus suffered mentally, and physically. Jesus refused to take anything that would help with the pain (Matthew 27: 34 34 They gave him a drink of wine mixed with a drug called gall. When he tasted it, he refused to drink it.) because this pain, that He suffered, was satisfying to God. It brought God pleasure to crush Jesus (Isaiah 53:10 Yet, it was the Lord’s will to crush him with suffering.

When the Lord has made his life a sacrifice for our wrongdoings,
    he will see his descendants for many days.

        The will of the Lord will succeed through him.) because it was the only way that our punishment can be dealt with seeing how heinous our crime was against a holy God. The greater the crime, the greater the punishment. The greater the offended (God), the greater punishment for the offender (man). And Jesus Christ paid it all!!!

So, is Jesus cruel? Absolutely not! 

Jesus is...Chief Cornerstone:(Ephesians 2:20) – Jesus is the cornerstone of the building which is His church. He cements together Jew and Gentile, male and female—all saints from all ages and places into one structure built on faith in Him which is shared by all.

Firstborn over all creation:(Colossians 1:15) – Not the first thing God created, as some incorrectly claim, because verse 16 says all things were created through and for Christ. Rather, the meaning is that Christ occupies the rank and pre-eminence of the first-born over all things, that He sustains the most exalted rank in the universe; He is pre-eminent above all others; He is at the head of all things.

Head of the Church:(Ephesians 1:22;4:15;5:23) – Jesus Christ, not a king or a pope, is the only supreme, sovereign ruler of the Church—those for whom He died and who have placed their faith in Him alone for salvation.

Holy One:(Acts 3:14;Psalm 16:10) – Christ is holy, both in his divine and human nature, and the fountain of holiness to His people. By His death, we are made holy and pure before God.

Judge:(Acts 10:42;2 Timothy 4:8) – The Lord Jesus was appointed by God to judge the world and to dispense the rewards of eternity.

King of kings and Lord of lords:(1 Timothy 6:15;Revelation 19:16) – Jesus has dominion over all authority on the earth, over all kings and rulers, and none can prevent Him from accomplishing His purposes. He directs them as He pleases.

Light of the World:(John 8:12) – Jesus came into a world darkened by sin and shed the light of life and truth through His work and His words. Those who trust in Him have their eyes opened by Him and walk in the light.

Prince of peace:(Isaiah 9:6) – Jesus came not to bring peace to the world as in the absence of war, but peace between God and man who were separated by sin. He died to reconcile sinners to a holy God.

Son of God:(Luke 1:35;John 1:49) – Jesus is the “only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). Used 42 times in the New Testament, “Son of God” affirms the deity of Christ.

Son of man:(John 5:27) – Used as a contrast to “Son of God” this phrase affirms the humanity of Christ which exists alongside His divinity.

Word:(John 1:1;1 John 5:7-8) – The Word is the second Person of the triune God, who said it and it was done, who spoke all things out of nothing in the first creation, who was in the beginning with God the Father, and was God, and by whom all things were created.

Word of God:(Revelation 19:12-13) – This is the name given to Christ that is unknown to all but Himself. It denotes the mystery of His divine person.

Word of Life:(1 John 1:1) – Jesus not only spoke words that lead to eternal life, but according to this verse He is the very words of life, referring to the eternal life of joy and fulfillment which He provides.

His position in the trinity
Alpha and Omega:(Revelation 1:8;22:13) – Jesus declared Himself to be the beginning and end of all things, a reference to no one but the true God. This statement of eternality could apply only to God.

Emmanuel:(Isaiah 9:6;Matthew 1:23) – Literally “God with us.” Both Isaiah and Matthew affirm that the Christ who would be born in Bethlehem would be God Himself who came to earth in the form of a man to live among His people.

I Am:(John 8:58, withExodus 3:14) – When Jesus ascribed to Himself this title, the Jews tried to stone Him for blasphemy. They understood that He was declaring Himself to be the eternal God, the unchanging Jehovah of the Old Testament.

Lord of All:(Acts 10:36) – Jesus is the sovereign ruler over the whole world and all things in it, of all the nations of the world, and particularly of the people of God's choosing, Gentiles as well as Jews.

True God:(1 John 5:20) – This is a direct assertion that Jesus, being the true God, is not only divine, but is the Divine. Since the Bible teaches there is only one God, this can only be describing His nature as part of the triune God.

His Work on earth
Author and Perfecter of our Faith:(Hebrews 12:2) – Salvation is accomplished through the faith that is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8-9) and Jesus is the founder of our faith and the finisher of it as well. From first to last, He is the source and sustainer of the faith that saves us.

Bread of Life:(John 6:35;6:48) – Just as bread sustains life in the physical sense, Jesus is the Bread that gives and sustains eternal life. God provided manna in the wilderness to feed His people and He provided Jesus to give us eternal life through His body, broken for us.

Bridegroom:(Matthew 9:15) – The picture of Christ as the Bridegroom and the Church as His Bride reveals the special relationship we have with Him. We are bound to each other in a covenant of grace that cannot be broken.

Deliverer:(Romans 11:26) – Just as the Israelites needed God to deliver them from bondage to Egypt, so Christ is our Deliverer from the bondage of sin.

Good Shepherd:(John 10:11,14) – In Bible times, a good shepherd was willing to risk his own life to protect his sheep from predators. Jesus laid down His life for His sheep, and He cares for and nurtures and feeds us.

High Priest:(Hebrews 2:17) – The Jewish high priest entered the Temple once a year to make atonement for the sins of the people. The Lord Jesus performed that function for His people once for all at the cross.

Lamb of God:(John 1:29) – God’s Law called for the sacrifice of a spotless, unblemished Lamb as an atonement for sin. Jesus became that Lamb led meekly to the slaughter, showing His patience in His sufferings and His readiness to die for His own.

Mediator:(1 Timothy 2:5) – A mediator is one who goes between two parties to reconcile them. Christ is the one and only Mediator who reconciles men and God. Praying to Mary or the saints is idolatry because it bypasses this most important role of Christ and ascribes the role of Mediator to another.

Rock:(1 Corinthians 10:4) – As life-giving water flowed from the rock Moses struck in the wilderness, Jesus is the Rock from which flow the living waters of eternal life. He is the Rock upon whom we build our spiritual houses, so that no storm can shake them.

Resurrection and Life:(John 11:25) – Embodied within Jesus is the means to resurrect sinners to eternal life, just as He was resurrected from the grave. Our sin is buried with Him and we are resurrected to walk in newness of life.

Savior:(Matthew 1:21;Luke 2:11) – He saves His people by dying to redeem them, by giving the Holy Spirit to renew them by His power, by enabling them to overcome their spiritual enemies, by sustaining them in trials and in death, and by raising them up at the last day.

True Vine:(John 15:1) – The True Vine supplies all that the branches (believers) need to produce the fruit of the Spirit— the living water of salvation and nourishment from the Word.

Way, Truth, Life:(John 14:6) – Jesus is the only path to God, the only Truth in a world of lies, and the only true source of eternal life. He embodies all three in both a temporal and an eternal sense. The list of who Jesus is is From gotquestions.org

I want to end by saying...

Jeremiah 17:9 is why we need a savior Jesus Christ and why we need the Holy Spirit to know just how depraved we really are. And it is only by God that our hearts can be fixed in order to turn away from our wickedness of sin and turn to God. And it is Jesus whom has allowed us to be able to be reconciled with the Father. It is Jesus, that has made us innocent in God's eyes. It is only through the Holy Spirit that can we really see that with all things happening in the world, a Just and Righteous God, who is perfect, allowed all things to happen for a reason that we are not able to always understand. But, because we know what kind of God we serve, we can put our full trust in Him and in everything He do. Only God and our Lord and savior Jesus Christ deserves all the honor, and glory and praise forever and ever! Amen.

I love you and God bless you,

Mrs. Angela R. Grant.