Good morning. Talking
about Jesus: He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning,
the first born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place
in everything. He is the head – the body should not be doing anything without
consulting the head; but too many times it does. Eventually disaster will
result. Several times the book of Revelation talks about Jesus being the
beginning. Here it says that He is the firstborn from the dead. You don't have
a firstborn unless you have a second born or more. In Luke it talks about Mary
giving birth to her firstborn son. And why does Jesus have this position – for
it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and
through Him to reconcile all things to Himself; having made peace through the
blood of His cross; through Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
Jesus had all the fullness of God dwelling in Him. He wasn't just a good man.
He was very God of very God, as they say. (Paul will mention this again in
chapter 2). There is a divide between God and man. God used Jesus's death on
the cross to reconcile us to Him, not the reverse. He is not the one that
turned away. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind,
engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body
through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond
reproach. When I was young, it did not seem like people were hostile toward
God. They may not have been open to Him, but they were not hostile towards God.
Now though it seems like they are hostile everywhere and all the time. And they
are definitely engaged in evil deeds, even in the open not just in secret. He
didn't save us just to give us our fire insurance. It was so that we would be
holy and blameless and beyond reproach. Father thank You that You will present
the reader to Yourself holy and blameless and beyond reproach.
Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God
Good morning. While Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. Jesus was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men. Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. It doesn’t say, but I assume it is still during this time of the Passover. This man came to Jesus by night. Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do the signs that You do unless God is with him. It just said that the people believed in His name because of the signs He was doing; yet it does not say what those signs were. Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. That is why unbelievers cannot tell what is of the kingdom of God and what is not – they’re not born again. Nicodemus doesn’t have a clue. How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he? Unless one is born of water and the Spirit ...
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