This week we will study one of my absolute favorite names of Jesus. This name is a difficult one to grasp, which is likely part of why I love it so much, but it is such a beautiful name to behold. Jesus is the Bread of Life; through this name, we can better understand who Jesus is and what He satisfies in the lives of those who believe in Him.
In John 6:35 Jesus declared “I am the bread of life.” He goes on to explain what this means, and we are going to pull this verse apart to explore the deeper meaning in the context of the original Greek.
32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”
35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.
as the Divine λόγος, come from heaven, who containing in himself the source of heavenly life supplies celestial nutriment to souls that they may attain to life eternal.
the Spirit, the repository and imparter of life, and which is received by those united to Christ
As the Bread of Life, Jesus is the source of heavenly life and He supplies the sustenance for our souls. By and through Him is spiritual life for those who are united to Him. We are told that if we eat of this bread – if we rely on Christ to sustain our spirits and fill our souls with nutriment, we will be given eternal life in Heaven.
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
He also tells us that we must not live on bread alone, which in this context is literal bread made with flour and water and baked into a loaf. Rather than live on literal earthly food alone, we must live by the Word of God, which is also Jesus. Jesus is the Bread of Life, giving spiritual life and sustenance to our very souls, and we are to live by Him as the spiritual bread for our souls, and His Word as the means of receiving Him.
3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word[a] that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Every day we should seek to be filled and satisfied by the Bread of Life, and pray for Him to sustain us. As our great Provider He takes care of our physical needs for sustenance as well as our spiritual needs, In the Lord’s Prayer, we are taught to pray for our daily bread. This should serve as a reminder that we should not live on physical food alone but on the Word of God and the spiritual nutriment that He provides. We must lean into Him, pray to Him, rely and depend on Him for all things and trust that what He provides is what we need.
9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.[a] 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done,[b] on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread,[c] 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.[d]
When the Israelites were wandering the wilderness for those many years, the people had to go out and gather the manna God gave them from Heaven. They needed to commit and participate every day. Every day they would have to make time to go out and gather the bread from Heaven God had sent them. This was a foreshadowing of Christ to come, and Christ references this to help the Jewish people understand His role as the Bread of Life. Just as the Israelites needed to obey and trust in this Bread from heaven to sustain them, we are to obey and trust in Jesus, the Bread of Life, to sustain us spiritually into eternity.
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.
27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”
the condition of one who is in need of nothing requisite for his real (spiritual) life and salvation
As the Bread of Life, Jesus tells us that all who come to Him will never hunger. This word “comes” is an active commitment to learn from Him and to enter into a personal relationship with Him. Those who commit to learning from Him, obeying His instruction, and entering a personal relationship with Him will never lack spiritual life and salvation. Coming to Jesus as the Bread of Life means we will be spiritually satisfied and the promise of eternity in Heaven ahead of us.
33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
painfully feel their want of, and eagerly long for, those things by which the soul is refreshed, supported, strengthened
Jesus also tells us that those who believe in Him will never thirst. This belief is to be fully convinced, convicted, to have faith and give yourself up to Him fully. When we surrender ourselves and our lives to Jesus, He says we will never thirst, that is to say we will never suffer the painful want and longing for our souls to be refreshed, strengthened, and supported.
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.[a] Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.[a] The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
When we give ourselves to Christ, our souls will be completely refreshed, supported, and strengthened. We will never lack spiritual strength and will have a constant source of spiritual refreshment. Our very souls will be content and satisfied in Him, the Bread of Life. God gave His Son for this, that we may never again have to feel the emptiness of a soul without the presence and sustenance of God, longing painfully for His presence.
16 “For God so loved the world,[a] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Coming to Jesus – following His instruction, obeying His commands, and being in a personal relationship with Him take constant diligence and intention. It takes active participation to remain faithful and obedient, and for all relationships to thrive. Jesus tells us to take communion, or the sacraments, in remembrance of Him as the Bread of Life. This is one part of training ourselves to continuously come to Christ and remain in our relationship with Him. When we remember the sacrifice He made for us, we are better able to actively learn, engage, and grow in our understanding and relationship with Him.
54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
By committing to the instruction of Jesus, entering into a personal relationship with Him by faith, and actively remembering and growing in our understanding and relationship with Him, He tells us that our souls will be satisfied, our salvation secure, and our very spirit will be given life, strength, and refreshment for the days ahead preparing for our future in Heaven with Him. By reading scripture, praying, learning, and obeying what we learn every day, we can be better prepared for our eternal home when the time arrives for us to enter into glory with Him. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who feed on the Bread of Life – that is where true satisfaction is found. True contentment in life comes from a true belief in and commitment to Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
Seeing how beautifully every one of Jesus’s names goes together is incredible. Each of them is like a puzzle piece fitting together with every other name. This week, we will explore Jesus as Teacher. As we study many of Jesus’s names that speak of Him as Truth, learning of Jesus as the Teacher is an essential piece of the puzzle in understanding Him as Truth.
1 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born [a]again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
I love this part of the gospel story when Nicodemus, a Pharisee, comes to see Jesus under the cover of night. He tells Jesus that some of the Pharisees know that Jesus is a teacher come from God and that no one could do what Jesus has done unless God was with Him. Not only does Nicodemus acknowledge his belief that Jesus is a teacher from God, but he calls Jesus Rabbi, the honorable name Jews call their teachers (G4461). Jesus’s response to Nicodemus’s statement is to tell him that only someone who is born again can see the Kingdom of God.
Unless you are given spiritual life, you cannot be spiritually born, and therefore cannot understand spiritual things. Unless you are spiritually born you will not understand the things which Jesus teaches. If you cannot perceive the spiritual teachings of Christ, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. If you are not born again, you cannot be a disciple of Jesus, the Teacher.
40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.
In order to be disciples of the Great Teacher, we must die to sin and be raised to spiritual life through faith in Jesus Christ. When we accept Jesus as our Savior we are given new life, a new identity as followers of Jesus, and as Children of God, coheirs with Christ. Jesus teaches plainly that if you wish to inherit eternal life you must be born again, and to be born again you must believe and trust in Jesus Christ as your Teacher and the only means of salvation.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth [a]through the Spirit in [b]sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, 23 having been born again, not of [c]corruptible seed but [d]incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides [e]forever, 24 because
“All flesh is as grass, And all [f]the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away, 25 But the [g]word of the Lord endures forever.”
Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.
Once you have been born again through faith in the Teacher, you must follow the teachings of Jesus and prioritize His ways of living. To do this, we must commit to learning from His Word, living by His example in scripture, and spending time growing in our faith and relationship with Him through prayer.
18 And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. 19 Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.”
20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
21 Then another of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
When we have faith in Jesus, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit to be a guide and help us through our life in preparation for eternity with Him. As we read the Bible, pray, and commit our lives to the Lord, the Holy Spirit will help us and guide us along the way. The Holy Spirit draws us to God and then works in us to continue refining us and making us more like Christ. We can follow and prioritize Christ when we understand spiritual things, and we understand spiritual things when the Holy Spirit gives us spiritual life.
12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the [a]Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;
Teach others what you have learned from the Teacher
We are to be led by the teachings and examples of Christ, and we are called to share all we have learned with others. This is not to take His place as the teacher, but to follow His command to go out and make more disciples. Jesus is very clear that He is the One Teacher, and those who teach His Word should be humble, exalting Christ rather than ourselves.
8 But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your [c]Teacher, [d]the Christ, and you are all brethren. 9 Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. 10 And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. 11 But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 And whoever exalts himself will be [e]humbled, and he who humbles himself will be [f]exalted.
34 Then Peter opened his mouth and said: “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. 35 But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him. 36 The word which God sent to the [l]children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ—He is Lord of all— 37 that word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. 39 And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom [m]they killed by hanging on a tree. 40 Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, 41 not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. 42 And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. 43 To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission[n] of sins.”
18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go [a]therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” [b]Amen.
Christ gave Himself so that we may live in eternity with the Father. He came as a man and left lessons for His disciples to follow so that we may be prepared on the day He returns for us. As our great Teacher, He is the One to look to in all circumstances, lean on in every trial, praise in every joy, and always be humble at the foot of the cross where He died for our sake. He didn’t just die for us – He also gave us His Word to teach us why He died, and how to live because of His death and resurrection.
Have you accepted the grace of God?
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
Jesus has many names that speak of Him as the Son the God, the Son of Man, and also as the Truth. One of the primary names for Jesus that teach us about His identity as the Truth is Jesus as the Word. The book of John opens up with this name, telling us that the Word was in the beginning, was with God, and was God. What does it mean that the Word was in the beginning with God, and was also Himself God?
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not [a]comprehend it.
This name is attributed to Jesus many times throughout both the Old and New Testaments. In Greek, the word used for “Word” is logos. In John 1:1, it is used to speak of both Jesus Christ as well as the Word of God. All over scripture logos is used and several meanings can be found, but all of them relate directly back to Jesus Christ and His unity with God in various ways.
a word, uttered by a living voice, embodies a conception or idea
what someone has said
a word
the sayings of God
decree, mandate or order
of the moral precepts given by God
Old Testament prophecy given by the prophets
what is declared, a thought, declaration, aphorism, a weighty saying, a dictum, a maxim
discourse
the act of speaking, speech
the faculty of speech, skill and practice in speaking
a kind or style of speaking
a continuous speaking discourse – instruction
doctrine, teaching
anything reported in speech; a narration, narrative
matter under discussion, thing spoken of, affair, a matter in dispute, case, suit at law
the thing spoken of or talked about; event, deed
its use as respect to the MIND alone
reason, the mental faculty of thinking, meditating, reasoning, calculating
account, i.e. regard, consideration
account, i.e. reckoning, score
account, i.e. answer or explanation in reference to judgment
relation, i.e. with whom as judge we stand in relation
reason would
reason, cause, ground
In John, denotes the essential Word of God, Jesus Christ, the personal wisdom and power in union with God, his minister in creation and government of the universe, the cause of all the world’s life both physical and ethical, which for the procurement of man’s salvation put on human nature in the person of Jesus the Messiah, the second person in the Godhead, and shone forth conspicuously from His words and deeds.
Some uses speak of logos as the teachings of God, while others speak of the reasoning and explanations of God, and others refer specifically to the commands and spoken word of God. Logos, the Word, is literally the Word of God in all aspects: physical, ethical, and spiritual.
From the beginning the Word was with God and was God
Looking back at the very beginning of scripture, the book of Genesis tells us about the moment of creation before proceeding to tell us about the creation of humanity, while the book of John opens up with creation and then proceeds to teach about eternity.
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
equivalent to with, with the accusative of a person, after verbs of remaining, dwelling, tarrying, etc. (which require one to be conceived of as always turned toward one)
At the absolute beginning of all created things, God created the heavens and earth. The Word was there, too. He dwelled with God and literally existed as God. The Word is God’s reasoning, teachings, instructions, commandments, wisdom, and power manifested in the person of Jesus Christ and in the written Word of God which is created, as all things are, through, by, and for Jesus Christ. By His Word God commanded creation into being. His Word came from His lips, dwelling there with Him over all things, and the Word was also God’s very nature, being, and power.
The Word made everything
In Christ, all things were made. For Christ, all things were made. By Christ, all things were made. Everything was made by and through the Word of God, who is Jesus Christ, for the purpose of glorifying God and being in communion with Him.
16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or [a]principalities or [b]powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
1 God, who [a]at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the [b]worlds;
Being made for His purposes, we were all made to draw near to the Word, to live and display the Word, and to proclaim the Word so that others may be drawn to the Word also. Those who believe in the Word are commissioned to go out and tell others about Him so that they may also receive the free gift of salvation through faith in the Word of God by the grace of God.
18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go [a]therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” [b]Amen.
Jesus Christ is both fully man and fully God. He needed to be in order to fulfill God’s plan to redeem mankind. He, the Word of God, needed to willingly humble Himself to become like us so that He could be the spotless, perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins. The Word became flesh in order to die in our place so that those who believe in the Word would gain the promise of eternal life, never to be separated from God again.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it [a]robbery to be equal with God, 7 but [b]made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
14 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
The written Word of God is living, sharp, discerning, penetrating the very soul of the reader because it holds the breath of life, is the very essence of Truth, and is a gift by the grace of God alone. All things are created for the purposes of Christ the Word, and His purpose is to give eternal spiritual life to the one who hears the Truth of the Word and believes it.
12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— 2 the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
The Word gives spiritual life to those who hear and believe, and the promise of eternal life is given by the grace of God through the salvation of Jesus Christ obtained through the sacrifice of His own life on the cross. Those who believe in the Word are given freedom and new life and are set free from their old lives in bondage to sin. Believe in the Word by faith and you will spend your eternal life in the presence of God where there will be no more curse of sin.
26 For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, 27 and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
When we receive the spiritual life granted through faith in the Word, the Word fills us with His holy light. His light is a guide to our lives. When we live by the light of the Word we walk in the path of righteousness, drawing nearer to God, and we shine His light on those around us. By shining His light on others, we draw them closer to the Word also.
12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
We are given the Word purely by the grace of God. We could never receive Him, draw near to Him, understand Him, or be in a relationship with Him if it were not for the holy and precious grace of God. By grace, we are saved through faith in the Word, and by grace, we are blessed, guided, strengthened, taught, led, convicted, and come closer to Him every step.
9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified [a]freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a [b]propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
The Word is completely Truth. The Word is what we should live our lives according to, and live our lives for. By living according to the Word of God we are sanctified, being made holy throughout our lives and walk with the Lord. We are called to abide in the Word and we will know Truth, and in this Truth we will find freedom.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
The Word is the only way to the Truth, and the only way to true life. Through the Word come life, light, grace, and truth for our lives, our very souls, and to prepare us for eternity with the Father. All of us are called to believe in the Word, abide in the Word, and share the Word. He will teach us in all of these things, and strengthen us to do His will, drawing us and those around us closer to Him by His Word.
12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
To abide in the Word we must first have faith and believe in the Word, accept His Truth, and receive His life. Once we accept Jesus as our personal savior, we should be actively growing in our faith and understanding of the Word every day, making Him the top priority of our life and days. Some ways we should be abiding in the Word are:
Make time for God every day. Schedule time to read your Bible daily. It is great to start your day with God to help your focus be on Him throughout the day.
Make time for prayer every day and learn to pray scripture. Prayer is your personal communication with God and learning to set your heart, intentions, and focus on Him helps you grow closer to Him and His calling.
Get a study Bible that applies to you. There are so many options out there it can be hard to know which one is right for you. Pray over your search and let God lead you to the right one for you.
Incorporate prayer, Bible study, and Bible reading plans into your daily life. You can do this with the help of faith planners, prayer journals, and Bible study journals.
Join a Bible study group with friends, at church, with us, or somewhere else. Studying with others is actually something we are called to do as well. It really helps to study with godly people to help us all grow in godliness.
Email me for an invite to our Discord servers! We do studies on Wednesdays for the whole community, and a special private ladies-only study on Wednesday nights!
When you are feeling stressed, anxious, afraid, and uncertain train yourself to turn to the Word and prayer. Pray for guidance, peace, stillness, and for help trusting Him in this moment and in your circumstances. Lean into the Word for help and do not lean on yourself and your own understanding of the situation.
When you are excited, peaceful, happy, joyful, and feeling blessed praise God for it. Don’t just seek God when things feel wrong, but seek Him when things are going well. Thank Him and glorify Him. Acknowledge His hand in these moments as well.
What are some ways you have learned or are learning to abide in the Word? Please share with us in the comments or on Discord what has worked for you to help encourage others and provide some perspective that others may learn from.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
When we explore many of Jesus’ names as the Truth, one of the main names to learn is Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. What does it mean for Jesus to be the way, the truth, and the life? This is an essential question for every believer and one we should strive to answer according to God’s Word to those who also have this question. Understanding Jesus in these ways will help us to build a faithful relationship with Him and to grow in that faith throughout our lives.
6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will also know[a] my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Jesus is the Way. The book of John is a great place to begin for understanding Jesus as the Way. Jesus explains Himself as the gate by which His sheep must enter to be saved. In the culture of Biblical times, this imagery would have been well understood and relatable. It is to say that the sheep who are let into the pasture by way of the gate are the sheep that belong to the shepherd, and the shepherd’s sheep know him and listen to him. In the same way, the only way to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and gain access to God is by the Way of Jesus. To have faith in Jesus is to enter by the gate of salvation, and then to come to know and obey Him throughout our lives.
Jesus said again, “Truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
There are many who will try to obtain eternal life in other ways, but scripture is very clear that the only Way to God is through true saving faith in His Son. He welcomes all, no matter where you have been or where you have come from, to come to Him to be saved. Jesus is the Way of salvation, eternal life, and access to a personal relationship with God the Father and the gift of His Holy Spirit. Those who have true faith will enter into salvation by Christ and will listen to His voice as a sheep does their shepherd.
For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh, he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death. He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
With these things prepared like this, the priests enter the first room repeatedly, performing their ministry. But the high priest alone enters the second room, and he does that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit was making it clear that the way into the most holy place had not yet been disclosed while the first tabernacle was still standing. This is a symbol for the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the worshiper’s conscience. They are physical regulations and only deal with food, drink, and various washings imposed until the time of the new order. But Christ has appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come. In the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this creation ), he entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow, sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God?
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus —he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh )—and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.
Not only is Jesus the Way to the Kingdom of God, salvation, eternal life, a personal relationship with God, and the Holy Spirit, but He is also the Way to understanding the Truth and He is Himself the Truth. He gives Himself for our salvation, and His Word to teach us how to live a holy life for the works He has created and called us to do for His glory.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John testified concerning him and exclaimed, “This was the one of whom I said, ‘The one coming after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’”) Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness, for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
“You are a king then?” Pilate asked. “You say that I’m a king,” Jesus replied. “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
Through the Word, we learn the Truth and grow in our relationship with and understanding of the Truth. Jesus teaches us how to live a life worthy of the calling we have received in Him by faith and instructs us in how to prepare for Him to return for His bride before we enter into eternity with Him. By faith, we should produce works that are evidence of our faith, and live out the Truth we have learned in Christ through His Word.
To grow in faith and understanding of the Truth, we should pray and read the Bible daily. Prayer is our direct line of communication with God through our faith in Jesus and the Bible is the Word of God, and the teachings of Jesus. Both equip and teach us how to live a life pleasing to God in preparation for eternity with Him.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or his stature because I have rejected him. Humans do not see what the Lord sees,[a] for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart.”
As we receive salvation through the Way of Jesus Christ and learn more about Jesus as the Truth, we get to learn to live the life He has planned for us. He gives us new life through the washing of His blood, resurrecting us from being dead in sin to being alive through the redemption of His blood spilled for our sakes.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.
By faith, we walk through the narrow gate and are given new life and a new identity in Jesus Christ. This new identity in Him gives us access to God the Father and His Holy Spirit so that we can learn to live a life worthy of Him. We are born again and given the gift of spiritual life by the Way of Christ and then begin to learn and understand more of His Truth.
But now, since you have been set free from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification —and the outcome is eternal life! For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
But that is not how you came to know Christ, assuming you heard about him and were taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, to take off[c] your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed[d] in the spirit of your minds, and to put on[e] the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.
Jesus is the Way to and the Truth of eternal Life. The Truth teaches that the Way to spiritual and Eternal Life is by faith in Jesus Christ. Your faith should produce obedience and fruitfulness according to the Spirit of God that gives life to a believer’s spirit. By entering salvation by the Way of Jesus you accept His Truth, are given new Life through His death and resurrection, and then get to learn more of the Truth. In order to live the life we were made for we must have faith and believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. No one receives salvation and the forgiveness of their sins except through Jesus Christ.
For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
Over the last several weeks we have explored many of the names of Jesus as the Son of Man. Before we transition to exploring many of the names of Jesus as the Truth, let’s take a look at the names of Jesus as the Son of Man and take time to pray and reflect on how knowing Jesus deeper in these ways helps us to grow closer to Him.
Son of Man
God reveals Himself to all of His creation and draws us all to His Truth and to His Son. No one can come to Jesus in faith unless God draws them, and God draws all of His creation into a relationship with Him. It is then up to each of us whether we choose to acknowledge Him, to have faith in Jesus, or not. If we choose to believe and have faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we will be justified in the sight of God and receive the gift of salvation through the blood of Jesus. If we choose to reject God’s promptings and revelations of Himself, He will give us up to sin and the consequences of our sin which is eternal separation from Him and all that is good.
9 “Today salvation has come to this house,” Jesus told him, “because he too is a son of Abraham.
10 For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”
In knowing His identity as Messiah we learn the importance of the history in scripture, the foretellings and prophecies, and the gift of understanding provided when we choose to have faith in Him. He provides us with all we need in this earthly life to prepare us for the promise of abundant and eternal life in Heaven with Him all throughout His Word, and commands us to learn from His Word, meditate on it, remember it, and do what it says. Seek Him and His Kingdom, obey Him in love, and follow Him in faith.
40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard John and followed him.
41 He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah”[a] (which is translated “the Christ”),
When we have God within us through the gift of His Holy Spirit, we begin to see the world through His eyes rather than our own. We are made new in Him by our faith because of His grace. As He changes our perspective, He also changes our hearts, our minds, and our nature.
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
Our Spiritual blessings are reserved for us in Heaven but in this earthly life those who believe in the Son of Man get to see and experience glimpses of the full blessings to come while we actively wait in hope, in confident expectation, for the fulfillment of the promise. By God’s grace, our souls are accepted through faith in the Beloved, and these blessings come through the power of God’s Holy Spirit to those whose souls have been accepted by God. We get a glimpse of these spiritual blessings in this life, but believers get to experience the perfect and full blessings when we get to Heaven to spend eternity with the Lord.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He [a]made us accepted in the Beloved.
We are each a temple for God’s Spirit and are called to be united with the Body of Christ, leaning on the strength and understanding of Christ throughout all areas of life. If we are not trusting Jesus as the cornerstone of our life, we are not aligned with Him and are not building our life on His truth. We were made through, by, and for Jesus, and He calls on us to live aligned with Him in faith, allowing His Spirit to fill us, guide us, and align us to the Way of salvation through Christ.
19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household,
20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.
21 In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
22 In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
Trusting Jesus as our Good Shepherd gives us peace that surpasses understanding as we trust in Him to guard, lead, and control our lives in the ways He knows are best for us. We are immeasurably blessed when we choose to enter into a personal relationship with Him and enter through the gate into the promise of salvation that can only be obtained through Jesus Christ.
14 “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me,
15 just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 But I have other sheep that are not from this sheep pen; I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd.
We are called to trust in our Great High Priest who is without any sin or blemish to intercede for us with God on our behalf, making us right with God and able to enter into His presence and receive His Spirit. Just like the Israelites were all given specific jobs to do, we too are called by God to work for Him and bring Him glory throughout our lives.
As we lean into His Spirit and trust our Great High Priest we will learn and grow in our dependence on God, our humility and recognition of our sin condition, and seek His forgiveness and provisions to become more like Him all the time.
14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
Scripture teaches us that if we abide in the Lord, live as He teaches and calls on us to live, be diligent in prayer, meditate on scripture, and obey it, we will know that we are in Him. It is very clear that true faith is evident in the works produced because of that faith. These works stem as a result of true faith, and will always match up with what scripture teaches.
This is how we will know we have Jesus as our advocate – that our faith produces godliness in our lives, character, nature, actions, and words. True faith changes our heart condition and we begin to naturally desire and display godly things instead of worldly and sinful things. There is a true inward-to-outward transformation that happens when we have Jesus as our advocate.
1My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
As we wait for Christ to return for His bride, we are to be like the 5 virgins who were wise. They prepared for a long wait, not knowing how long before their bridegroom would come for them. Because they prepared, they were ready when their bridegroom came for them.
We must be careful not to follow the example of the 5 foolish virgins who were not prepared and expected those who were prepared to provide for them when the time came. Due to their lack of preparation, they were left behind.
28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’
29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.
Just as husbands are to be head of their wife, being placed by God in a position of loving leadership over her, Christ is head of the Church, His bride. He oversees His people in many ways that are also emphasized by the marriage relationship between a husband and wife.
22 And he subjected everything under his feet[a] and appointed him[b] as head over everything for the church,
23 which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.
A life tethered to the Rock of Jesus is a life tethered to hope and joy in all circumstances. When we are tethered to Him, we can live in true freedom. As we grow in our relationship with Jesus we will grow in faith, strength, courage, peace and perseverance. Where we are weak He is strong and we can rest and rely solely on Him for all that we need, allowing Him to strengthen us spiritually and prepare us for eternity with Him.
1 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea,
2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
3 all ate the same spiritual food,
4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.
These beautiful names of Jesus as the Root of David and Bright Morning Star speak of Jesus as King of kings and Lord of Lords, sovereign over our whole lives. If Jesus is truly the Lord of our whole lives we will look to Him and His Word and live by it. We will not dwell on earthly things, but will focus on Jesus and allow Him to teach us how He wants us to see both earthly and heavenly things.
16 “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.”
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
Names of Jesus: Root of David, Bright Morning Star
In Revelation 22 Jesus is identified by two names at once; Root of David, and the Bright Morning Star. These particular names speak about Jesus in both physical and spiritual terms, about His humanity and divinity. It is no accident or coincidence that these names are paired together here at the end of scripture, and today we will dive into what this two-part name means and why it is significant for believers.
What does it mean that Jesus is the Root of David, the Bright Morning Star?
It is no coincidence that Root of David, and the Bright Morning Star are named together. They hold significance to all mankind and teach us much about who Jesus is. In Revelation, Jesus is revealing to the apostle John what will happen at the end of the age after He has returned and all mankind is judged. He is telling us that believers will be with Him and the curse of sin will be no more.
16 “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.”
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
Here at this beautiful conclusion, He is giving us a glimpse of Heaven and eternity, and in the same stroke He explains that the end is near, that soon He will repay each person for their work, and He calls on us to live by His commands. He tells us that those who “wash their robes”, who live in holiness that is pleasing to God, will be blessed and enter the gates of Heaven, but those who remain in sin and disobedience will be outside the holy gates of Heaven forever. It is at this powerful point He names Himself the Root of David, the Bright Morning Star.
Jesus is both the source and the son of David. Everything was made through, by, and for Jesus, therefore that includes King David. Jesus made David for Himself and came into the world to dwell among mankind through the genealogy of David, King of Israel. It was prophesied that the Messiah would come through the line of David, and that prophecy was fulfilled. This shows Jesus’ divinity in that He created David Himself and used David for His purposes, and shows His humanity in that Jesus was born as a human baby to dwell among us through the line of David. It proves Jesus is heir to the throne of David, and also shows that He is King of kings and Lord of lords.
16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or [a]principalities or [b]powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
5 And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
Jesus is 100% God and 100% man, having both created the line of David and having been born of the line of David. He is also the Bright Morning Star. Jesus, fully man and fully God, is the light and hope for all who believe in Him. Because of His divinity and humanity, He is the only One worthy and able to save mankind from the penalty of our sins. His sacrifice is the only sacrifice able to pay the price demanded but that no one can pay. Because we cannot pay the price for our sins Jesus, the spotless lamb, left Hsi throne in Heaven to become like us, to live a perfect, sinless, human life and sacrifice His life so that by believing in Him we could be saved by His blood.
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Those who have faith in Him will be saved, and those who are saved are blessed. When you have trusted Jesus as your Savior you are called to obey His commands. Part of His appeal in Revelation 22 is for the Spirit and the bride to say “come”, which tells the Church, the Bride of Christ, to call unbelievers to Jesus to share in the eternal inheritance and the right to the tree of life.
If we truly love Him, we will obey Him. Our faith should be evident in the way we live our lives. Our lives should pour out the love and light of Jesus and draw others to Him, bearing His fruit by abiding in Him. In abiding in the vine and living water that is Jesus our thirsty souls will be satisfied and we will bear fruits of the Spirit in our lives.
13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
These beautiful names of Jesus as the Root of David and Bright Morning Star speak of Jesus as King of kings and Lord of Lords, sovereign over our whole lives. If Jesus is truly the Lord of our whole lives we will look to Him and His Word and live by it. We will not dwell on earthly things, but will focus on Jesus and allow Him to teach us how He wants us to see both earthly and heavenly things.
4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”
We are called to place Jesus in His rightful place in and over our lives and accept Him as our savior in faith. We should then begin to grow in our personal relationships with Him and commit to learning and applying His Word to ourselves. As we learn and grow, we become more like Him, display Him throughout our lives, draw others to Him to share in the eternal blessings, and at the end of the age we will receive our inheritance by joining Him in the gates of Heaven for eternity.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, [a]we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
In 1 Corinthians 10, we read about many examples we have in the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul is writing this letter to the Corinthian church to encourage them to continue in faith and in the teachings they have received, and also to rebuke their sinful hearts, actions and reputations. In this letter, Paul teaches the Corinthians and future generations of believers about the importance of Jesus Christ as the rock of our lives. Jesus is our Chief Cornerstone, and He is also our Spiritual Rock.
1 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.
Paul uses the Israelites as an example, pointing out that they were all divinely freed from Egypt, provided for and led through the wilderness, and that the source of this divine provision and guidance was Jesus. He was the spiritual Rock that followed them through the wilderness, in all the long years they spent wandering in disobedience.
to follow one who precedes, join him as his attendant, accompany him
Even with the disobedience of the Israelites Jesus, the Rock, was with them and accompanied them on their journey. He did not just provide physical provisions such as the mana, quail, and the water from the rock God told Moses to slam his staff into. The Israelite’s were given guidance and protection against enemies.
They were guided in both their physical and spiritual journey. As they continued in spiritual resistance and physical disobedience, the Rock continued to draw them to Himself and lead them to repentance and the land that was promised to them. He disciplined them, taught them, fed them, and protected them during their many years of wandering. They were eventually led to the land that was promised where only two of the adult Israelites were permitted to enter, leaving the rest to reap the consequences of their disobedience and never inherit the promised land.
This picture of the Israelites is drawn to describe Jesus as The Rock, and uses the Israelites as a warning to all. Jesus is our Spiritual Rock. He is firm, immovable, resilient, and strong. He guides and changes our thoughts, opinions, actions, and lives. When we live in obedience, we, like Caleb and Joshua who were permitted to enter the promised land, will reap the promised blessings of a life aligned with our Rock. If we fail to obey, we will be like the Israelites who continued in their disobedience, wandered for many years, grew in bitterness and complaining, and eventually were shut out of the promised land.
A life tethered to the Rock of Jesus is a life tethered to hope and joy in all circumstances. When we are tethered to Him, we can live in true freedom. As we grow in our relationship with Jesus we will grow in faith, strength, courage, peace and perseverance. Where we are weak He is strong and we can rest and rely solely on Him for all that we need, allowing Him to strengthen us spiritually and prepare us for eternity with Him.
The Rock of Faith
Jesus is the founder and perfector of our faith, and as such He is the Rock of our faith. He is the reason and source for our faith, and He sustains our faith, grows it, tests it, develops and shapes it. Without Christ, we have no reason for faith and hope.
He gave His life so that those who believe in Him would spend eternity with God. We can have faith in the faithfulness of God and sacrifice of Jesus. He is perfect and just, and His sacrifice covers over the sins and pays the penalty for those who would have faith in Him as their Rock and redeemer.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Christ teaches us that we can trust and rest in His strength. His strength resisted all temptation and sin, endured immeasurable agony on our behalf, and bore the full weight of sin and darkness on the cross so that we could be free in Him, because of His strength. We could never have the strength to make it through this life on our own.
2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
We also could never be strong enough to earn our salvation. It is only by completely trusting in the strength of Jesus that we can receive the grace of God and be saved. It is also by His strength that, once salvation has been received, we can endure all the trials, spiritual battles, and many pains and struggles of life.
31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
Where we are weak, He is strong and when we are in alignment with Him and have a sincere relationship with Him, we will live in obedience to Him and experience His strength to carry us through all of life’s circumstances.
Fear is growing in today’s culture and can completely consume us if we let it. Between the politics, the pandemic, war, and all the brokenness in our personal lives and around the world Satan can plant seeds of doubt and fear in us that take us further and further from the Rock and His Truth if we let it. The more we align our lives to the Rock, though, the more we can resist the fear the enemy wants to plant within our hearts.
Christ, our Rock of courage, can give us not only faith and strength, but being in alignment with Him also gives us access to His courage to help us defeat the fearful attacks of the enemy who seeks to devour us. Fear is not from God, and allowing ourselves to become victims to fear and remain in it will push us away from our Rock.
Hold firm to the Rock of Courage and let Him provide you with His own courage to fight against fear in your life and stand firm in the Truth that He has already won, that He loves us and wants to carry our burdens and fears. We have nothing to fear when we have God.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
As we learn to lean into Christ as the Rock of our lives, we also begin to experience His peace. This peace that comes from the Rock can be experienced no matter the circumstances we are in or the situations we are going through. The peace of Christ surpasses our understanding yet can consume us and give us the strength and courage we need, and will help us have clarity to focus our eyes and hearts and minds on Him.
33 These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you [a]will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Peace can be felt when we truly rely on the Lord alone and recognize we cannot do anything without Him. We surrender to Him and His power, and trust His will and direction for our lives no matter what. Even Paul who was in prison for his faith wrote to the Philippian church not to be anxious about anything, but to pray, give thanks to the Lord, make your requests known to God, and He will give you peace that will guard you. This peace guards you by the power of Jesus Himself as our minds and hearts stay set on Him and dependent on Him.
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
As we allow Christ to be our Rock, giving us His strength, courage, faith, and peace, He fills us up more and more with Himself so that we can persevere through all of life’s circumstances, enduring to the end in faith. We are all running the race of faith and called to persevere to the end, being made stronger along the journey, until eventually the race will be over and He wants us to be ready, having completed the race successfully with our focus on Him.
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
The prize of perseverance in this race of faith throughout our lives is to spend eternity with the Rock that got us through it all. To obtain this prize, we must do it His way, allowing Him to guide and provide all that we need, casting off our impatience, our short-cuts, our pride and self-reliance and leaning into the Lord and His ways and timings. The only way to persevere is to continue to grow in our personal relationship with Him, grow in our faith, and grow in our dependance on Him.
26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. 27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
2 Count it all joy, my brothers,[a] when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
Continuing to grow in our faith and dependance on the Lord will help us to receive and grow in true wisdom that only comes from the Lord our Rock. As we learn to rely on Him, heed His guidance, rest in His strength, courage and peace, we also learn and grow in the Lord’s wisdom and begin to apply it more and more to our lives. True wisdom comes from Him.
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
In Proverbs we learn that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. This fear is not the kind of fear like being afraid of something, but is an awe, a respect, genuine wonder and respect. When we look to the Lord in awe and wonder, with love and respect, growing in faith and trust, we can begin to learn the wisdom and understanding He has in store for us.
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
This wisdom is meant to be applied and used in our lives and to serve the Lord and participate in the great commission. When we neglect wisdom or choose not to use it for His purposes, we begin to close ourselves off from His wisdom. We must earnestly seek His wisdom through a personal relationship with our Rock, Jesus Christ, and through prayer, worship, and reading His Word.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption— 31 that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”
By inviting Jesus Christ into your life to be your Lord and Savior gives you access to Him as the Rock of your life, giving you His strength, courage, peace, faith, perseverance, wisdom, and so much more. By growing in our personal relationships with Him, we begin to display His character more and our old selves shed from us more and more. We are able to cast off our old nature and take on His nature to prepare us for eternity with Him.
6 Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. 7 And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” 8 Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; 9 nor let us [a]tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; 10 nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11 Now [b]all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our [c]admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
When we trust in Jesus as our Rock, we change for the better and are able to endure anything we go through in life when we lean into Him and trust Him to see us through, rather than relying on ourselves or even on other people. Christ is how we get through this life and make it to the promise of eternity with Him.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
Last week we explored Jesus as the Bridegroom. He is our Bridegroom, and we, the Church, are His bride, the body of Christ. Jesus as the Bridegroom is also correlated with Jesus as the Head of the Church. Just as the husband is the head of the wife, so Jesus is the Head of His Church. As Head of the Church, He is head over everything for the Church. Let’s explore what the Bible tells us about the meaning of Jesus as the Head of the Church.
22 And he subjected everything under his feet[a] and appointed him[b] as head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.
In Ephesians 1:20-23 Paul explains that God exercises His own power and authority through Jesus, and placed Christ at His right hand, giving Him authority over everything for the sake of the Church. Jesus is the Head of the Church because God bestowed Him with this superior position and authority, not only in this age, but also in the age that is to come after Christ returns again and into eternity.
13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
Not only does God establish all earthly leadership and authority, but He establishes ALL leadership and authority including that given to Christ Jesus. God establishes all authority and in Romans we are instructed to submit to the governing authorities, which applies also to submitting ourselves to the authority of Jesus Christ as Head of the Church.
1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.
Jesus has such authority that even nature itself heeds His command. When scripture says He has authority over all things, that everything is subject to Jesus for the sake of the Church, God truly means everything.
23 As he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. 24 Suddenly, a violent storm arose on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves—but Jesus kept sleeping. 25 So the disciples came and woke him up, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to die!”
26 He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
27 The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him!”
How does the Head of the Church oversee His people?
Just as husbands are to be head of their wife, being placed by God in a position of loving leadership over her, Christ is head of the Church, His bride. He oversees His people in many ways that are also emphasized by the marriage relationship between a husband and wife.
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Christ loves His Church so much that He came down to live a sinless human life among man, go through unimaginable pain and suffering, and finally die bearing the weight of all of our sins upon Him, to be raised again in glory, and ascend into Heaven to sit at the right hand of God and prepare a place for His Church and Bride to come dwell with Him. He loved us so much that He literally gave His own flesh to redeem and sanctify us, restoring to God those who would believe and submit themselves to Him as a wife to her husband.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.[a] 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body.
Christ is our Savior, and through His sacrificial death on behalf of His Church, He offers those who will believe in Him the way to eternal life because of His love for us. When we choose to accept His sacrifice for our sakes, we are washed clean by His blood spilled on our behalf and receive His Holy Spirit to sanctify us for and to Himself.
As Head of the Church, He is our Bridegroom, and He, too, left His Father in Heaven to dwell among us and obtain for Himself His bride. He then departed to make a place for us to dwell with Him in Heaven at the appointed time. One day, such is the Jewish marriage custom, He will return for His bride and we will become on with Him.
31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Christ is to be placed as the absolute top priority in our lives, just as our marriage is our second priority, second only to our relationship with Christ. Christ left the Father in Heaven to dwell with us and prepare for Himself His Bride and Church, ascended into Heaven to prepare a place for us, and will return for us so that we can dwell and become one with Him.
28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
As Head of the Church, Christ will return for His Church and take us away to dwell with Him where there is no sin, no pain, no heartache. He will take us away to spend eternity with Him in the presence of God where there is absolutely no sin, but only good things because all good is from God.
13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before[a] Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
1 Timothy 5 contains instructions for the Church, and is established by Christ’s own example. Verse 8 tells us that anyone who doesn’t provide for his relatives and his household denies the faith. Jesus sets this example in that He, as the Head of the Church, provides for His Church, those in His family. He gives us salvation through His own sacrifice, His Holy Spirit, His Word, His instructions, love, hope, grace, and mercy. He provides all that His family needs.
8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
As we wait for Him to return for us, He does not leave us alone without help. He gives the Holy Spirit to those who trust Him as their Savior, the door is opened for us to have a personal relationship with God the Father through our faith in Jesus the Son, and we get to pray directly to God and read His Word. He provides us with His Armor to fight through this life, persevering in His will and ways, learning how to prepare for His return.
19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[a] may be complete, equipped for every good work.
31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
Not only does Christ provide for all of our needs, but He gave Himself as the ultimate example in all things. Throughout His Word we learn about how to live as Christ, following His teachings, and being led by His way and will.
7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
He supplies all of our needs, and guides us by His divine power for His glory and honor. We were made by Him, through Him, and for Him. He does not neglect to call us to Himself and teach us all that He knows we each need to learn, provide for us what we each need, at the time and in the ways He knows is right and best. The Head of the Church never abandons His Church or their needs.
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Have you accepted the grace of God?
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
In John 3, John the Baptist is baptizing people and his disciples are worried about Jesus baptizing as well. John explained to his disciples that he was privileged with the joy of preparing the way for the coming of Jesus, the Heavenly Bridegroom. John understood that Jesus is superior, that he, just like us, must decrease so that Jesus can increase, and with this, he, just like us, must submit to the authority of Jesus, our Bridegroom.
28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ 29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”[a]
John equated himself to the friend of the bridegroom who helps arrange and prepare for the wedding. Think of this as “the best man” in our wedding culture today. He makes plans, arranges matters, and serves the bridegroom faithfully. Once he finished his job, he stepped aside for the bridegroom. He was content and humble, acknowledging Jesus as the bridegroom whom he had prepared the people for.
In biblical times, the bridegroom to be married would go away and prepare a place for his bride to come and dwell with him. During that time the bride would wait for her bridegroom by actively preparing for his arrival. His arrival was not announced or arranged ahead with the bride or her family. It was a surprise when he would show up to take his bride away to their new home which he had prepared for her.
She did not know the day or the hour, so she had to be ready at any time for his arrival. It was not a passive waiting, nor did she procrastinate or put things off for later. She prioritized actively preparing for her bridegroom’s arrival, and learning to be the wife she was intended to be to her husband. When the bridegroom would show up, he would take his bride away to the wedding ceremony and feast, and they would dwell together in the place he’d prepared.
As followers of Jesus, the Church, we are the bride of Christ, and Christ is the bridegroom. He is off preparing a place for those who believe in Him and who are actively preparing for his return to be taken away and dwell with Him. As the bride we should be prioritizing and actively awaiting His arrival, preparing ourselves to be the wife to our Lord that He calls on us to be for Him.
What should the Bride do while waiting for the Bridegroom?
Throughout scripture, we see many teachings and examples of marriage and all believers should pay careful attention to the lessons on being a godly wife. These are not only lessons for earthly wives to live by, but for all believers to also live by as the bride of Christ. We should be actively growing and learning how to be the bride of Christ, preparing for Him to come and take His bride away with Him to our eternal dwelling place with Him.
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.[a] 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Wives should submit to their husbands as believers are to submit to the Lord. We are all to submit to the authority of our Savior. This is a respectful and loving kind of submission. It is a submission that acknowledges and accepts God-given order and roles.
Wives are to submit to their husbands, so also believers are to submit to Christ. Husbands should also love their wives as part of their own body, just as Jesus loves the Church which is the Body of Christ. He nourishes, loves, cherishes, and saves His bride. We are to respect Christ as our Bridegroom, and He will love us as His own flesh.
As we wait for Christ to return for His bride, we are to be like the 5 virgins who were wise. They prepared for a long wait, not knowing how long before their bridegroom would come for them. Because they prepared, they were ready when their bridegroom came for them.
We must be careful not to follow the example of the 5 foolish virgins who were not prepared and expected those who were prepared to provide for them when the time came. Due to their lack of preparation, they were left behind.
“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps[a] and went to meet the bridegroom.[b] 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7 Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. 8 And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ 10 And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. 11 Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12 But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ 13 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
We must be watchful, carefully preparing ourselves for the return of our bridegroom to take us away with Him. Throughout scripture, we are given instructions on how to prepare. He gives us the Armor of God to equip us for the spiritual battles we will face as followers of Jesus, so that we may grow stronger in our faith and become more prepared for what is ahead. Learning what the Armor of God is and how to use it will help us to prepare for the day Jesus will return for us.
16 All Scripture is inspired by God[a] and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Some key elements of being prepared are growing a strong, personal prayer life between yourself and God, making time for God every day both in prayer and in His Word, earnestly seeking God’s wisdom and applying it to your life, and learning to live in a way that pleases God and brings Him glory, and actually applying what you have learned.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
We can be confident knowing that Jesus Christ is our advocate, but what does this mean and why is this so important? 1 John 2 tackles some vital truths about Jesus as our advocate, and what this should mean in the lives of every believer. This name of Jesus also helps us to better understand how we can come to know Jesus, and what that means for our lives as well. Jesus as Advocate is an important name for new believers, seasoned believers, and even those asking questions about Christianity. No matter where you are at on your faith journey, understanding what it means for Jesus to be your advocate can change your whole life.
Jesus is our Advocate
In 1 John, we see Jesus named as our Advocate with the Father. As our advocate, Jesus pleads our case with God. He acts as our intercessor. Jesus steps in on behalf of those who have faith in Him with God and declares them pardoned of their sin debt, proclaiming that He Himself paid the price on our behalf.
1 My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
one who pleads another’s cause with one, an intercessor
of Christ in his exaltation at God’s right hand, pleading with God the Father for the pardon of our sins
3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life,[a] and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Jesus Christ willingly died on the cross bearing all the sins of the entire world so that those who would have faith and believe in Him would be saved from the penalty of their sins. He took your sins, my sins, and everyone else’s sins entirely upon Himself and when Jesus died on the cross His blood covered every sin so that those who would have faith in Him as their Savior, declaring Jesus as their personal advocate with the Father, would then be pardoned of the sin debt He died to pay for on our behalf.
4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
By the grace of God alone, not anything we could possibly do, God sent His Son to be our advocate so that we could enter into a personal relationship with God the Father through faith in Jesus, the Son of God, our Advocate. By accepting Jesus as your personal advocate, declaring Him your Lord and Savior through faith through grace, we can begin to know Jesus through a personal relationship with Him.
3 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.
4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Right after telling us that Jesus is our advocate, John goes on to explain that by keeping His commandments we can come to know Him. Keeping His commandments is evidence of a personal relationship with the Lord, and of Him being our personal advocate with the Father, declaring our sin debt paid.
Here are some of the ways we can begin a relationship with Jesus and come to know Him better.
Believe and have faith in Jesus
The first step is to believe He is in fact the Son of God, your personal advocate, who died to pay the penalty for your sins past, present, and future to redeem and restore you to God.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
We must also come to confess and repent of our sins, which is to admit our sins to the Lord and agree with Him entirely about our sin, which should lead us to turn away from our sin and towards Jesus. As we humbly submit our sins to the Lord, we accept His power and authority over our lives, agree with Him that because of our sins we deserve death, and accept the grace of God that provides Jesus died for us, on our behalf, so that we wouldn’t have to pay that price and we could receive forgiveness and eternal life from God.
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Confessing our sins to the Lord and seeking His forgiveness is one of the ways we get to communicate with the Lord personally. Through prayer, we get to talk directly with God. The New Testament tells us that Jesus is not only our advocate but also our Great High Priest, by whom we now have a direct line of communication open with God the Father. We get to pray to Him whenever, wherever, however we are. He hears the prayers of those in His family and wants you to talk to Him.
Communication is essential to a growing, healthy personal relationship, and our relationship with Jesus is no exception. Pray to Him, rejoice in Him and in all He does and provides, and give thanks to and for Him. Confess your sins through prayer, and talk to God honestly as you would talk to a friend.
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Through faith, repentance, and prayer we get to grow in our relationship with Jesus, and through reading His Word we get to understand Him even deeper. The Bible is God’s written Word, living and active, and through His Word we get to learn about who God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are, what they do and have done for you, who you are to the Lord, how you are called to live, and so much more.
By being in the Word, reading and studying the Bible regularly, and making this a priority in your life you can come to know Jesus on a deeper, more personal, and intimate level, and continue to grow in your understanding of and relationship with Him. Scripture is given to us to teach us, train us, and prepare us. It is how Jesus speaks to us and instructs us in His ways and wisdom, and how we learn to live a life worthy of the calling we have received. We all have the same 24 hours every day, and we are all responsible for how we choose to spend that time. Choosing to make time every day to be with the Lord is imperative to knowing Jesus as your personal advocate.
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[a] may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Faith, repentance, prayer, and reading the Bible are all part of beginning your relationship with Jesus but are also all part of an ongoing and growing relationship with Him. None of these are one-and-done steps. All are constantly necessary. By continuing in faith, repenting of our sins and submitting to the Lord, learning to turn away from our flesh desires and toward the life He is teaching us to live, praying constantly, and being in the Word daily we learn to submit to Jesus and depend on Him in all things.
We must continually deny ourselves and strive to become more like Jesus. To do this we must be constantly devoted to growing in our relationship with Him, learning more about Him, and allowing His Spirit to lead us in His ways and will. We need to lean not on our own understanding, but let Jesus teach us His understanding and lean on that. We must also learn how to respond, fight, progress, persevere, and endure in faith with Jesus as the cornerstone of every area of our entire lives.
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: [a]adultery, [b]fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, [c]murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 [d]gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
Scripture teaches us that if we abide in the Lord, live as He teaches and calls on us to live, be diligent in prayer, meditate on scripture, and obey it, we will know that we are in Him. It is very clear that true faith is evident in the works produced because of that faith. These works stem as a result of true faith, and will always match up with what scripture teaches.
This is how we will know we have Jesus as our advocate – that our faith produces godliness in our lives, character, nature, actions, and words. True faith changes our heart condition and we begin to naturally desire and display godly things instead of worldly and sinful things. There is a true inward-to-outward transformation that happens when we have Jesus as our advocate.
5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God [a]is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. 6 He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
16 “For God so loved the world,[a] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
As we explore some of the many names of Jesus as the Son of Man, the name of the Great High Priest holds a special place in my heart. There is so much to understand in this name. When studying Jesus’ name as Great High Priest it is important to have background knowledge of Exodus and Leviticus where we read about the priesthood being established.
Taking a step back to Moses and Aaron’s time, God commanded Moses and Aaron to lead the people in establishing the priesthood, tabernacle, and sacrificial system. All of this is incredibly relevant to understanding what it means for Jesus to be our Great High Priest.
For even more context on Jesus as the Great High Priest, I encourage you to read through the intricate details in the books of Exodus and Leviticus and then bring that context over to Jesus as the Great High Priest. We find a detailed explanation of this name for Jesus throughout the book of Hebrews, which is where we will focus today.
In the Old Testament, the Priesthood was established. There was a High Priest who was specifically responsible for sacrifices and gifts to God on behalf of the people. The High Priest was the only one who could enter the Most Holy Place, or the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, which was separated by the outer sanctuary, or Holy Place, by an incredibly thick curtain that was approximately 4 inches thick. In the inner room was where the High Priest would come to be in the presence of God and offer a blood sacrifice once a year for himself and the people.
Qualifications for High Priest:
A man who is divinely appointed by God to intercede with God on the people’s behalf (Heb. 5:1)
Exhibits compassion, grace, and mercy to fellow sinners (Heb. 5:2)
Offers sin sacrifices for himself and the people (Heb. 5:3)
The High Priests were always descendants of Aaron from the tribe of Levi. It was required for them to be without any physical blemish. It was also required for them to be godly in character, compassionate, and divinely appointed by God to this high station. They were not only responsible for the sacrifices and gifts of the people to God, but they also acted as overseers for the other priests and the people. He was the primary leader of the whole congregation.
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What is the Importance of the High Priest?
The most important role of the High Priest was during the Day of Atonement, which is when he would make a blood sacrifice and offer it to the Lord in the Most Holy Place once a year. This blood offering acted as a sin offering to cover the sins of himself and his whole congregation for the year. He would sprinkle the blood on the people, and then take it into the inner room to sprinkle it on the Ark and specifically on the mercy seat where he would meet with God.
5 For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He can [a]have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. 3 Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins. 4 And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.
Moses was told that all of this – the entire tabernacle, sacrifices, offerings, rituals, and roles – were all a foreshadowing of an even greater covenant yet to come and that the greater covenant would come at the appointed time and change the old covenant. Every single detail of God’s commands for the designs and plans of the tabernacle and priesthood was important and give us the insight to help better understand the new covenant we have through Jesus.
11 Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? 12 For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. 13 For He of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no man has [b]officiated at the altar.
14 For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning [c]priesthood. 15 And it is yet far more evident if, in the likeness of Melchizedek, there arises another priest 16 who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life. 17 For [d]He testifies:
“You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.”
18 For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, 19 for the law made nothing [e]perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.
20 And inasmuch as He was not made priest without an oath 21 (for they have become priests without an oath, but He with an oath by Him who said to Him:
22 by so much more Jesus has become a [g]surety of a better covenant.
23 Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. 24 But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. 25 Therefore He is also able to save [h]to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, [i]harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; 27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever
God revealed to the Israelites that a new covenant would eventually come and change everything. When Jesus came, He brought that change with Him through the works He accomplished through His earthly life and ministry, and then His death on the cross. Jesus is our Great High Priest, far better than any High Priest the world has or will ever know.
While the High Priests would make atonement for their own sins and the people’s, this could never cleanse the people of their sins or perfect anything. This was always a temporary covering. God, being a holy God, cannot be in the presence of sin, therefore in order to have access to God people need to be redeemed of sin. Jesus giving Himself as the ultimate sacrifice is the way for us to have access to God. It is only through the washing of His blood that we can be redeemed of our sin and enter into a relationship with God.
When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain of the tabernacle was torn in half. This was not something that was physically possible for any human hands to do – it had to be the divine power of God. It was done to symbolize that the veil is now torn that separates us from God. Those who choose to have faith in the sacrifice of Jesus for their own personal sins can enter into the Most Holy Place and be in the presence of God.
There is no longer any need for blood sacrifice because Jesus is the final blood sacrifice, worthy of washing away the sins of the entire world. There is also no longer a need for the physical tabernacle, which was also a foreshadowing of the new covenant – accepting Christ as your savior invites the Holy Spirit in to dwell inside us, building us up as a holy temple for the Lord, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
Just as all those intricate details in designing, planning, crafting, and putting up the entire tabernacle in all its beauty was specific in detail in order to be a worthy sanctuary for the Lord, we too must allow Jesus, our Great High Priest, with the help of His Holy Spirit, to build us up to be a holy people set apart for our holy God.
We are called to trust in our Great High Priest who is without any sin or blemish to intercede for us with God on our behalf, making us right with God and able to enter into His presence and receive His Spirit. Just like the Israelites were all given specific jobs to do, we too are called by God to work for Him and bring Him glory throughout our lives.
As we lean into His Spirit and trust our Great High Priest we will learn and grow in our dependence on God, our humility and recognition of our sin condition, and seek His forgiveness and provisions to become more like Him all the time.
The earthly priests could never obtain salvation for themselves or the people through their rituals, but through the High Priests and the Tabernacle, we can learn and grow in our understanding of Jesus as a far superior Great High Priest who is able to intercede forever on behalf of all mankind who trust Him as their Great High Priest, and to wash away their sins with His very own blood, so that they may receive the gift of salvation because of the grace and mercy of our holy God.
23 Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be [j]purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are [k]copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— 26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
In John 10, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees after He has just healed a man on the Sabbath and the Pharisees excommunicate the healed man because He professed his belief that Jesus was of God. Jesus then explains to the Pharisees that He is the Good Shepherd of His sheep, giving a stark contrast between Himself and the religious leaders of the time.
14 “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me,
15 just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 But I have other sheep that are not from this sheep pen; I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd.
in the parable, he to whose care and control others have committed themselves, and whose precepts they follow
As Shepherd, others entrust their care and control to Him and follow His teachings, thoughts, rules, and behaviors. As our Good Shepherd, He is excellent in nature and characteristics and competent in His designated office of Shepherd. He is qualified and able to take care of us and to be entrusted with control of our lives.
We are all sheep, but only the sheep who hear Jesus’ voice are sheep of His flock. There are sheep who do not hear His voice, who do not believe in Him. The Shepherd would feed, protect, guide, and provide for the sheep of His flock. He would fend off predators, guard them against getting lost, and carry them home when they were sick or wandered off. The Shepherd constantly cared for his sheep.
25 For you were like sheep going astray,[a] but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer[b] of your souls.
The Shepherd knew all of his sheep and gave them each a special name, and each of his sheep knew their shepherd and listened to his voice. They would respond to him and obey him, but they would not listen to or follow the voice of a stranger. They knew the difference between the voice of their shepherd and the voice of a stranger. The Shepherd would also go before his sheep to make sure the path ahead was safe.
Describing Himself as the Good Shepherd, the people would have understood the metaphor. Additionally, Jesus talks about “other sheep” which was referencing the Gentiles, meaning that He would also call on the Gentiles to believe, and the Jews and Gentiles would be united by their faith in Jesus as the Good Shepherd.
36 When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd.
Jesus emphasizes that He voluntarily lays His life down for His sheep, and in this declares His power and authority to do so, as well as to rise again from the dead, which only God can do. As our Good Shepherd, He gave up His physical life in order to give us eternal life through Him.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
In being our Good Shepherd He displays the greatest of love for His sheep and sets the example of love for us, calling us to live by His example. Those who call on the name of Jesus, professing faith in Him as our Good Shepherd, should love others selflessly as Christ loves us, and follow His example and teachings in all things. Through our faith in our Good Shepherd, we obtain the promise of salvation and eternity with our Heavenly Father.
17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Trusting Jesus as our Good Shepherd gives us peace that surpasses understanding as we trust in Him to guard, lead, and control our lives in the ways He knows are best for us. We are immeasurably blessed when we choose to enter into a personal relationship with Him and enter through the gate into the promise of salvation that can only be obtained through Jesus Christ.
21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
Jesus has many names all over the Bible, and we have explored many of His names identifying Him as the Son of God, and several so far as the Son of Man. This week we will explore His identity as the Chief Cornerstone. This name teaches us important information about who Jesus should be to each of us, and also teaches what happens when He is not in His rightful place in our lives. Both the Old and New Testaments speak of this name for Christ, and we will take some time to explore the meaning of this name and what scripture says in context, as well as how this part of Jesus’ identity should impact our own lives.
Christ the Cornerstone
19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
In Ephesians 2, we read that believers are no longer “foreigners and strangers”, but that we are now united as members of God’s own family. This family is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and Christ Himself is the cornerstone. This whole united structure is being built up in faith as a holy temple for the indwelling of God’s Spirit. To understand this image better, let’s take a leap back to explore some cultures from biblical times.
In these times, buildings were constructed by fitting large stones together. The builders would place the first stone down, the cornerstone, and then every other stone would be lined up with this cornerstone, beginning with the foundation. The foundation would branch off to form a foundation that was ready to have walls built up from it. So, imagine for a moment the first stone laid down, then from there the builders select big rocks suitable for a firm foundation and fit them up against the cornerstone. Each stone had to fit perfectly together in order for the structure to be made strong and solid, and it had to line up with that very first stone, the cornerstone.
In this way, Christ is that first stone, the cornerstone, the apostles and prophets were made into a foundation aligned with Jesus, and then the rest of the believers are additional stones added to the building, being fitted together and built up, growing into a holy temple for the Lord. No stone can be added that does not line up with the cornerstone and fit within the structure. The cornerstone is the strongest stone that holds all the pieces together, and the foundational stones must be solid as well, fitting perfectly together with the cornerstone creating a united foundation.
For as the cornerstone holds together two walls, so Christ joins together as Christians, into one body dedicated to God, those who were formerly Jews and Gentiles
And as a cornerstone contributes to sustain the edifice, but nevertheless some fall in going around the corner carelessly; so some are built up by the aid of Christ, while others stumbling at Christ perish
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[a] may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The building is fitted together and aligned with Christ, the chief cornerstone, and will be unshakable. Believers aligned with Christ as the chief cornerstone of their lives are filled with the Holy Spirit and learn from the examples and testimonies of the prophets and apostles found in scripture. Scripture instructs us to filter all things through the Word of God, and also to learn from the examples of godly people. The teachings and testimonies of the prophets and original apostles are given as a foundation for us to learn from and be encouraged by, as they lived and taught from the cornerstone of Jesus.
We are each a temple for God’s Spirit and are called to be united with the Body of Christ, leaning on the strength and understanding of Christ throughout all areas of life. If we are not trusting Jesus as the cornerstone of our life, we are not aligned with Him and are not building our life on His truth. We were made through, by, and for Jesus, and He calls on us to live aligned with Him in faith, allowing His Spirit to fill us, guide us, and align us to the Way of salvation through Christ.
16 Do you not know that you[a] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
As Jesus is the only way to salvation, no one can lay a firm foundation on anything but Christ. No other foundation will stand – it will be like building your house on the sand. Only a life and hope built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, the Chief Cornerstone, will stand.
11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
24 “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.”
When we build our lives and place our hope in Jesus, lining up to Him as our Chief Cornerstone, we are building our lives on the sturdy, unshakable foundation of stone. When the storms, trials, and struggles of life come, and they will, we may get a bit battered, but we will not fall because our hope and faith is in Jesus and all that He provides.
When we are not trusting in Jesus as our cornerstone, it is like building our lives on the sand. When struggles, trials, and storms come our foundation of sand washes away and everything goes with it. Life falls apart, and we are left wrecked, trying to keep our heads above water. If we don’t place our hope and build our life on the firm foundation of faith in Jesus Christ, we will be blown about by every storm and wind that blows through our lives and carried away by it.
2 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, desire the pure milk of the word,[a] so that by it you may grow up into your salvation, 3 if you have tastedthat the Lord is good.[b] 4 As you come to him, a living stone—rejected by people but chosen and honored by[c] God— 5 you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood[d] to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:
They stumble because they disobey the word; they were destined for this.
9 But you are a chosen race,[i][j] a royal priesthood,[k] a holy nation,[l] a people for his possession,[m] so that you may proclaim the praises[n][o] of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Those who reject Christ, reject the only true cornerstone and hope we have and build their lives on a foundation that will perish and crumble. Those who have faith in Christ become united as members of the Body of Christ, connected by Christ as the Chief Cornerstone, and sharing in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, being built into a holy temple for the Lord.
7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
The cornerstone is a stumbling block to unbelievers who choose to reject Christ as their foundation and fail to align themselves with Christ as the Chief Cornerstone because there is no foundation that will stand without Him. They do not accept Him as Lord and Savior, and instead trip over the only sure foundation there is and fall into the hardness of unbelief which leads to an eternity apart from God and all that is good.
7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
If you have not trusted Jesus as the Cornerstone of your life, what’s stopping you from trusting Him today? He is ready, waiting for you to come to Him. He isn’t waiting for you to clean yourself up, He is not expecting you to be perfect, and He is not surprised at the baggage you bring with you. He knows every hurt, every struggle, every mistake, every sin.
He knows all the questions you have, and He is reaching out to you today asking you to trust Him in faith. He is the only One who can give you the strength and peace you need, and this can only come from a personal relationship with Him as your Lord and Savior when you accept His sacrifice for your sins so you can be made right with God and become a child of God, coheir of the Promise.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
Ephesians 1 is a powerful chapter of scripture that explores some vital themes and lessons for all people, believers and unbelievers, to learn and seek to understand. In this chapter, we learn yet another name of Jesus, and the surrounding passages express the significance of the name of Jesus as the Son of Man. Jesus Christ is the Beloved; He is the Beloved Son of God, and He is also the Beloved Saviour of all mankind.
What are spiritual blessings?
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He [a]made us accepted in the Beloved.
A concrete blessing or benefit’ of the blessings of Christianity
Spiritual Blessings are concrete benefits and blessings of Christianity that come from the Holy Spirit and exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, which are the divine characteristics of God’s Spirit. These benefits correlate with God’s character for the benefit of Christians.
Our Spiritual blessings are reserved for us in Heaven but in this earthly life those who believe in the Son of Man get to see and experience glimpses of the full blessings to come while we actively wait in hope, in confident expectation, for the fulfillment of the promise. By God’s grace, our souls are accepted through faith in the Beloved, and these blessings come through the power of God’s Holy Spirit to those whose souls have been accepted by God. We get a glimpse of these spiritual blessings in this life, but believers get to experience the perfect and full blessings when we get to Heaven to spend eternity with the Lord.
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Fruit of the Spirit
13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who[d] is the [e]guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
The Holy Spirit gives believers a glimpse of the spiritual blessings in store for those who endure to the end of the race in faith and perseverance. As believers grow in faith and dependence on God and persevere in faith through trials and sufferings, the characteristics of the Holy Spirit begin to shine through us. His Spirit is teaching and refining us to live Holy lives, set apart for Him. We are sanctified until the very end of our race when Christ perfects us as the Author and Perfector of our faith, and we get to reside with Him.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.[a]
The fruit of the Spirit are traits that believers should be exhibiting and growing in. All spiritual blessings will line up with these fruits. If spiritual blessings do not line up with the fruits of the Spirit, they are not from the Spirit, not Spiritual Blessings. As believers, we must diligently filter all things through the Word of God, and seek the counsel of the Holy Spirit.
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
As believers, we have peace with God through our faith in Jesus. We are reconciled to God and granted His divine peace for our very souls. Peace with God provides peace for our souls, even when life is in chaos. To have the spiritual blessing of peace is to be at peace with the author of peace, and we must rest in faithful obedience to His divine will and instruction.
This peace and rest for our soul in this life is a glimpse of the perfect peace we will have in Heaven where there is no sin, evil, or unholiness of any kind. To receive the spiritual blessing of peace we have to turn away from evil and earnestly desire the peace of God. We must desire to be at peace with God by living obediently to His Word and growing in obedience to His Spirit who has sealed us for the day of promise.
16 Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He [a]made us accepted in the Beloved.
10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, [a]both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. 11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
As believers who have trusted the Beloved as our Savior and placed Him as Lord over our lives, we become coheirs with Him. We are adopted as sons and daughters of God through our faith in the Beloved. Being coheirs, we share in the heavenly inheritance and all things work together for the good of those who are in God’s family through their trust in the Beloved, for the glory of God
12 giving thanks[a] to the Father, who has qualified you[b] to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
When we become children of God through faith in the Beloved, we also receive forgiveness of our sins. God’s Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins and leads us to repentance. Through true repentance, we admit our sin and agree with God about it, and He forgives us if we have truly turned away. This repentance washes us clean by the blood of Jesus and makes it possible to be in the presence of God.
Once we have been forgiven, the Holy Spirit begins the sanctifying works in us. Every time we repent of our sins He continues to forgive and sanctify us and heals us as we continue to grow in faith and become more like the Beloved. The Beloved came to call sinners to repentance so that they would experience a glimpse of the Spiritual blessing of forgiveness, but also receive the promise of forgiveness in order to spend eternity in Heaven with Him
19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,
9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,[a] not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and [b]prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself.
When we have faith in the Beloved, we are granted the Holy Spirit who guides us with His wisdom and understanding, revealing what God wants us to know at the right time in the right circumstances and seasons of our lives. We are granted glimpses over time as we grow in faith, apply and obey the knowledge we have learned, continue to seek God’s wisdom, and lean on His understanding.
All of this wisdom and understanding granted in this life is merely a glimpse of what God will reveal to us when we get to Heaven. God’s Spirit helps us to discern the Word of God, and to apply His Word to our lives, and filter all things through His Word and wisdom
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:
Prayer is our direct line of communication with God, because of the relationship we have with Him through our faith in the Beloved. The Holy Spirit teaches us to pray, and intercedes, giving us the words to say. As believers, God promises to hear our prayers when we are living in obedience to Him. His Spirit not only teaches us how to pray, but also teaches us how to live in a manner pleasing to God, and therefore teaches us the right things to desire and ask for in prayer. When we are in Heaven we will be able to talk with God directly and dwell with Him.
3 Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and incomprehensible things you do not know.
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.[a]
14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
26 In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us[a] with inexpressible groanings. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your [f]understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
By our faith in Christ, we have hope in the Beloved for the promise of eternity in Heaven with Him. We experience a glimpse of this hope when we trust Him in faith, learn to seek first the Kingdom of God in this life, and focus on living worthy of the calling we have because of our faith in Him. Our hope is in Heaven, and we can be confident in the promise of eternal peace where there will be no sin, and therefore no pain, suffering, sadness, or anything but the goodness of God.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality[g] and [h]power and [i]might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
God’s power is unfathomable. God grants us His power in order to share His gospel all over the world and resist the power of sin and evil in this world. His power in our lives is meant to be used to advance the Kingdom and to participate in God’s redemption plan by helping to draw others to saving faith in the Beloved so they, too, can share in the inheritance.
In Heaven, the full weight of God’s power and glory will be revealed and we will be able to dwell in safety in His Kingdom. Sin will be completely defeated once and for all by His strength and power, and in this life, we have a glimpse of His power over sin as the Holy Spirit helps us to resist temptation and sin.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
20 Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us— 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
In this life, we are given the offer of salvation by the grace of God through the blood of the Beloved. By faith, we can accept the free gift of salvation and be sealed by the Holy Spirit, and our names are written in the Book of Life so that when the Day of Salvation arrives, we are judged as spotless because of our faith in the purifying blood of Christ. When that day comes, we will receive the promise of eternity in Heaven with the Lord.
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust[a] destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 4 and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. 5 You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
As we explore the names of Jesus that teach us about Him as the Son of Man, Emmanuel is a vital name to know. It’s a beautiful name we often hear in Christmas carols, we see it in both the new and old testaments, but what does it mean? Today we will explore what the name Emmanuel means, how it applies to us, and how Emmanuel impacts our faith.
What does Emmanuel mean?
Jesus’ name Emmanuel means “God with us”. The Greek emmanouēl (G1694) identifies Jesus as God, Jesus uniting man with God, and that God was dwelling with man. The Hebrew ʿimmānû’ēl (H6005) is the prophetic name for the Messiah. In the Old Testament, we see this name given for the One who would be born of a virgin to be the savior of the world, and that His name would be Immanuel, God with Us.
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
The name Emmanuel emphasizes the nearness of God to His people. Throughout scripture, we are given insight into what it means that God is with us, when He is with us, and what it means for each of us to have God with us.
symbolic and prophetic name of the Messiah, the Christ, prophesying that He would be born of a virgin and would be ‘God with us’
What does it mean for God to be with us?
For Jesus to have the name “God with Us”, means God was with us in the physical body while He lived on earth, but we also see Jesus promise He will always be with us. Not only was He with people when He lived on earth, but He is with us always, wherever we go, to the end of the age.
14 The Word became flesh and dwelt[a] among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son[b] from the Father, full of grace and truth.
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it [a]robbery to be equal with God, 7 but [b]made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
Jesus is not physically here in body with us now, but He is still with us. When we choose to believe in Him, our faith gives us direct access to God. Jesus bridged the gap between God and His people so that we may be reconciled to God through the blood of Emmanuel. When we are reconciled to God through Emmanuel, we are given His Spirit – a constant indwelling of God within us.
18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of[a] all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember,[b] I am with you always,[c] to the end of the age.”
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or [a]principalities or [b]powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
We were all created by Jesus’s power and authority, through Himself, and for His purposes. We were not made to be separate from God, but rather God created us for Himself. We were made to be with Him. Sin separates us from our Holy God, and Jesus was sent to earth to dwell among us and die a horrible death to pay the penalty for the sins of the entire world so that those who believe in Him as their Savior would be reconciled into a personal relationship with God, which we were designed for. By entering into a relationship with God through the spilled blood of Emmanuel, God’s Spirit indwells us and begins the process of making us holy and set apart for God and the works He has called us to.
14 And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
When we have God within us through the gift of His Holy Spirit, we begin to see the world through His eyes rather than our own. We are made new in Him by our faith because of His grace. As He changes our perspective, He also changes our hearts, our minds, and our nature.
27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
Through faith in Emmanuel, we are also granted His peace that surpasses understanding. He tells us all over scripture that we have no need to be afraid, and that He will be with us and give us peace – true peace that truly satisfies. Through His peace, we find strength. With Christ in us, we can tap into His peace and also His strength, so that no matter what we go through we can get through it with Him. We will face troubles throughout our lives, but His peace and His strength granted because of our faith by His grace will help us to endure every trial.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
As we endure, we will get stronger in our faith, and deeper in our dependence on God. We will learn to be patient with His timing and instruction and trust that whatever He chooses to provide is for our good. We will learn to hear Him and see Him all over our lives, and as we keep our focus on Him, guarding our hearts and minds in Him, He will continue to be with us and guide us to the end of the race, and into the eternal promises that await those who believe in Emmanuel, God with Us.
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the [a]author and [b]finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
I am a wife, mom, writer, crafter, and above all, a Child of God. I love to study the Bible, fellowship with other Christians, and serve God. I am thrilled to invite you to join me in seeking to satisfy our thirsty souls with the Living Water of Christ, which is what Water On Thirsty Land is here to do.
