Tag Archives: salvation

What We Need To Be Saved From

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - What We Need To Be Saved From

“What exactly are we ‘saved’ from?” someone asked.

If we weren’t blind and “past feeling”, it would be obvious:

bad government

that leaves God’s creation, people and the land, desolate

which is the result of every government other than God’s.

Other kingdoms is what Jesus saves us from, including yours and mine, and the just, righteous, restorative wrath of God against them.

For those who can see and know their cruel oppression, this is mighty good news.

We worship God for it, eagerly await it, and hope to have any part in ushering people into the freedom and safety of the kingdom of God before that great and terrible Day.

Preach The Foolish Gospel

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Preach The Foolish Gospel

I have a tendency to intellectualize things and want to make a compelling argument.

But far be it from me when God has chosen foolishness for me to make it reasonable and render it of no effect!

“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”
—1 Corinthians 1:21

I was not called to win debates.

I was called to preach the gospel.

“And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
—1 Corinthians 2:4-5

Jesus said His sheep know His voice and they follow Him.

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”
—John 10:27

So, my aim is simply to speak with His voice by His Spirit to gather His Sheep to Him that He leads to good pasture in God.

If the preaching of His Anointed Word does not cause them to hear, nothing will.

If the foolishness of the gospel does not save them, nothing will.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
—1 Corinthians 1:18

The foolishness of the gospel is the God ordained means by which He chooses. It is His dividing rod. I must be careful not to modify it or corrupt it to make it suitable lest it is no longer the gospel.

I must trust God.

I must do it His way.

If I don’t, those who are “saved” by my “ministry” are not saved at all, rather they are deceived again by the deceitfully wicked heart of man.

Preach the foolish gospel.

Here it is:

God alone is good.

We sinned and thereby died, becoming instruments of death, killing and being killed, languishing in darkness, hopelessly separated from God and condemned to the same destruction of every evil thing by a good and Holy God.

But, God demonstrating His exceeding goodness and love provided a Way, while we were His enemies, that we can be with Him. Jesus is the Way.

God came Himself, to do what only He could do, taking the form of man by sending His Son to live a sinless life so that He might be the perfect sacrifice -a sacrifice infinitely greater than sheep, goats and bulls, a sacrifice sufficient for the sins of the whole world for all time. Because, without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.

But, God through Jesus, who having the riches of God, paid the debt and took the penalty we owe -death. God made Him who knew no sin become sin that we might become the righteousness of God.

God through Jesus provides a way of salvation from the death we are dying now and the death to come.

But, God not only had Jesus to die for us. Jesus being God laid down His life and took it up again. He was raised from the dead as the firstborn of a new creation which we become part of as a new creature when we believe.

And, this is the good news: we can be with God.

Our sin is great but God’s love is greater and God has provided a Way to be with Him for all who will accept it. Jesus is the Way.

We accept it by believing God, that Jesus is God who came in the flesh, that He is the Word, that He alone makes the truth of who God is known to us, that He died for our sin and that He was raised from the dead.

Acceptance is indicated by repenting of our sin: denouncing the world -the kingdom of darkness, forsaking it with joy in exchange for the kingdom of light, seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness above all, confessing Jesus as King and Master and giving our lives to Him who in turn reconciles us to God.

When we believe God, not only does He account Jesus’ payment on the cross to our account so that our current, past and future debt is forever paid, He gives us new life, making us righteous and acceptable in the Beloved, making us instruments of life rather than death through the same Power that raised Jesus from the dead -the Holy Spirit, and by Him makes available to us all of the riches of God, including a bodily resurrection on the Last Day so we can be with God forever.

God has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes.

God has done this, not we ourselves, so it will not fail.

God did it for Himself, not for us, so His reason will never change.

God didn’t do it because we earned it, deserve it, or because of anything desirable in us, quite the contrary.

God did it because He’s just that good.

And, the good news is that we can be with God.

Repent.

Accept what God’s done.

Believe in Him who God sent: Jesus.

And, be saved.

#gospel #preaching #perfectourlove

Strange Fire

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Strange Fire

Strange Fire

Notes from my time in the Word this morning.

“Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them.

So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.

And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke, saying:

‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy;

And before all the people I must be glorified.’”

So Aaron held his peace.

So they went near and carried them by their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had said.”
-Leviticus 10:1-3,5

God does not want my thoughts, He wants His.

God does not want my love, He wants His.

God does not want my service, He wants His.

The only proper way to serve God is with what God supplies.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
-Isaiah 55:8-9

“As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.

If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.””
-1 Peter 4:10-11

To bring “strange fire”; our ideas, agendas and methods to the service of God defiles and makes little of Him, but most egregiously it defies the purposes of God, causing death, leading people astray, cutting them off from the Fountainhead of all meaning, creation and life.

Bringing strange fire is a crime that is killing people for which God will kill us with eternal death if we do not repent.

“If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”
-1 Corinthians 3:17

So, in the spirit of Jude 1:22-23, I plead for your sake: please do not mishandle the things of God or approach them trivially, appropriating His things for your purposes, or doing your thing in His name. It is sin –a deadly sin.

God is gracious, but He’s also severe. A good way to draw His wrath is to hinder others from coming to Him.

There’s a lot of this going on in Christendom today, especially to support our proclivities and our politics.

Repent!

All strange fire; ideas, identities, values, religions, systems and methods other than God’s, will be destroyed.

The only thing that can stand before God is God.

Which is why Christ is such good news.

Jesus Christ is God and is the only one in whom we can find shelter from the consuming fire of the wrath of God.

Therefore above all, be diligent to be found in Christ: die to self –forsake what you’re doing (put away the strange fire) and live to Christ –putting your complete faith in what Christ has done.

Only Christ is acceptable before God, so we must utterly depend on the grace He supplies to make your heart His heart, to say just what He says, to walk the way He walked by the same power that was at work in Him which is the Holy Spirit.

The only thing that can stand before God is God.

So let all we do be done with what God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Nothing else is acceptable before God.

All strange fire will be destroyed.

“And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.”
-Jude 1:22-23

The Thief On The Cross And What It Really Means To Be Saved

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - The Thief On The Cross And What It Really Means To Be Saved

I am so thankful for the cross because religious people try to complicate salvation and create hoops for people to jump through, but the cross demonstrates the simplicity of Christ.

At the cross we find astonishingly simple clarity.

Namely, the salvation of the thief on the cross, where Jesus saves a convicted sinner in his dying moments.

There is no time for religion, no perfectly worded expression of faith, no baptism, no works, no apparent fruit in that moment.

Yet, the thief was saved.

All of our theology has to square with this fact.

I draw many things from it but the one that’s heaviest on my heart right now is grace.

What’s displayed gloriously in the interaction between Jesus and the dying thief is grace.

Not grace in the sense of leniency or merely benevolence, but grace in the sense of the sovereign, unmerited, unassisted work of God.

God does it all.

The thief was mocking Jesus along with the crowd that was crucifying Jesus and him! But, at some point something changed.

I believe what Jesus described to Nicodemus in John 3:8 happened here,
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

I believe the Holy Spirit gave the thief ears to hear and eyes to see and at that moment he was allowed to see Who was hanging next to him.

Above Jesus’s head was written, “King of the Jews” (John 19:21) but the thief was allowed to see that He was not just an earthly king, He was the King of a Kingdom not of this world –a kingdom where the thief wanted to be.

“Then he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.'” -Luke 23:42

And Jesus responds,
“Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
-Luke 23:43

God does it all.

We like the thief are dying.

Sin is the disease that’s killing us.

We were without hope until Hope was revealed –hope established before the world was.

God had the Cure.
He promised the Cure.
He showed us the formula of the Cure (but even with that we could not grasp it).
He gave us the ability to receive (perceive) the Cure.
He gave us the Cure.
He is the Cure.
He heals us through the Cure.
The Cure is Jesus Christ.

Grace.

All the thief did was not reject it.

I feel led to take a moment and ask why would he [reject it]? At this point he has nothing to lose.

God had to bring me to such a point –of utter brokenness and despair where I had nothing else to lose. Very often it’s comfort, wealth or even just sufficiency -life being “good enough”, that’s deceiving us, holding us back and that causes us to fail to see our desperate need for Jesus.

I implore you, don’t be proud like I was, I would spare you that pain!

Humble yourself and seek the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God has come in the person of Jesus Christ. Seek the Lord while He may be found!

With a humble heart, petition the Holy Spirit to give you eyes to see and ears to hear as He’s done for the thief on the cross.

Look upon Jesus, hear Him through the Word, believe and be saved.

Grace.

God does it all.

All the thief did was not reject it.

The clarifying message of the salvation of the thief on the cross was that God does it all. Salvation is a gift that we simply receive –a gift that is imparted when we accept Jesus as He really is, just as the thief on the cross saw Him.

Dear brother, formerly called the thief on the cross, what did you see?

“I am a sinner, justly condemned (Luke 23:40-41), but this man is what is spoken of Him even though I may not know what that fully means: the Christ, King of The Jews (Luke 23:35-39), a King of a Kingdom that is not of this world –a kingdom where I want to be, He is One who will live again and who can make me live again (Luke 23:42).”

I love a commentary by Pastor Alistair Begg on the matter: “The thief enters heaven and he is asked about how he got there and what he knows about this doctrine or that and the thief replies, ‘All I know is that the Man on the middle cross said I could come.'”

Hallelujah!

The thief did everything that is necessary to be saved: He did not reject the grace God made available through Jesus Christ.

Right now, Jesus Christ, the grace and salvation of God, is being presented to you.

All you have to do is not reject it.

Accept it. Believe Jesus. Be saved.

I conclude with a caution: the thief did all that was necessary to be saved and enter life, yet their is so much more to be had. He was like a baby that was born but who’s earthly body was immediately aborted.

Yes, by all means, enter life BUT DON’T STOP THERE.

There is more life to be had.

Let us who live also continue on to maturity, enjoying and exercising the grace of God to His glory for all of our days.

Don’t live a minimal life.

Enter by grace.
Continue in grace.
Grow in grace.

Amazing Grace.

#grace #resurrection #ressurectionsunday

Believe Jesus All The Way

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Believe Jesus All The Way

It was good to fellowship this past Resurrection Sunday with the beautiful people of Sand Creek Chapel Church.

Their Pastor Abdural Lee preached on a powerful interaction from John 11:25-26 where Martha says to Jesus,

“If You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

And Jesus responds,

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”

“Do you believe this?”

Pastor Lee shared an illustration of him being a barber.

People have seen Pastor Lee cut hair, so they come to him trusting that he can cut their hair.

But, they don’t trust him to fix their car because they’ve never seen him do that type of work.

Pastor Lee uses this to illustrate how Martha trusted Jesus to heal her brother because she’s known Him to heal. “But,” as Pastor Lee says, “she’s never seen Jesus raise anyone from the dead.”

At this point Pastor Lee asserts what Jesus asserts that He “is the resurrection and the life” and then poses the same question that Jesus poses to Martha from verse 26,

“Do you believe this?” [that Jesus is the resurrection and the life]

From there Pastor Lee prompted us to assess to what extent we trust Jesus and then challenged us to “trust Jesus all the way”.

There are things Jesus has said He will do even beyond the resurrection that we’ve never seen and may not see in our lifetime.

We cannot receive what Jesus offers unless we trust Jesus all the way.

I’ve written before that salvation requires pinhole accuracy. Only Jesus can do it. Only Jesus can get you there. Jesus alone is The Way.

The world offers many paths, many doors, many versions of Jesus even, but Jesus is THE Door. And, there is a very specific Jesus we must go through.

It’s the Door that you only find by believing Jesus all the way, only by the full embrace of believing the most unbelievable event in human history –the resurrection: that Jesus was the only begotten Son of God given by God to die for our sins and He was raised from the dead “with all power” (Matthew 28:18).

Only by believing Jesus all the way can we receive what He offers: salvation, fellowship with God and resurrection.

Believe Jesus. All the way.

Thank you Pastor Abdural Lee.

#resurrection #ressurectionsunday

One More

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - One More

Something that struck me today as we were reflecting on the last utterances of Jesus from the cross…

There’s no indication that the Man had eaten.

He’s likely dizzy from the blood loss of the scourging alone. ¹

He struggles to carry the implement of His torture, weighing upwards of 175 lbs (79kg), for more than 650 yards (600m). ²

When He finally gets to the hill, He’s rewarded with nails driven through His flesh to fix Him to the cross. ³

He’s struggling to breath from the asphyxiation the cross was designed to produce.

He’s being humiliated, openly mocked even by both of the thieves He’s being crucified between. ⁴

But somewhere along the way, one thief has a change of heart. ⁵

Bloodied, beaten and dying, what does our Lord think?

One more.

Hallelujah.

In His state, Jesus makes the time for a thief, a “convicted felon” as someone put it today, to accept his repentance and to assure his salvation because the condemned man simply believed Jesus was a King not of this world. (Luke 23:39)

Jesus makes time for him in the midst of all He was going through to minister to him and say, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” ⁶

To His dying breath, Jesus used every ounce of strength He had to do His Father’s will.

This illuminates John 13:1,
“[…] Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” -John 13:1

He loved them to end with everything that He had -love that reconciled them to the Father.

That’s the standard.

This is a Perfect Picture of what it looks like to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. ⁷

My Lord and My God.

What excuse do I possibly have for not loving to the very end, especially since I “have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin”?! (Hebrews 12:4)

The calling is indeed high. So, “I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12)

When I am tired, hard-pressed, perplexed, persecuted, and beat down ⁸, by His grace I aim to be like my Savior and think, “One more.”

¹ Matthew 27:26, John 19:1
² Matthew 27:29
³ John 20:25
⁴ Matthew 27:44
⁵ Luke 23:38-42
⁶ Luke 23:43
⁷ Deuteronomy 6:5, Mark 12:29-31
⁸ 2 Corinthians 4:7

Only Two

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Only Two
Photo Courtesy: Muse by Clio

Do not be deceived.

There are only two camps.

Everyone is in one or the other:

Those who prefer darkness, or
Those who come to the Light.

Jesus is Light.

(John 3:16-21)

Those who prefer darkness:

love their lives to death,

love the world as it is, its pleasures and its value system,

are proud and believe they are capable of governing their own lives and the world,

prefer the world without the government of God, so that they can do what they please, even if those pleasures are an offense to what is good: God, and is harming themselves, others and the earth.

I know this intimately because this was (and to some degree still is) me.

-But-

Those who come to the light (by conviction and drawing of the Holy Spirit):

sense this life isn’t it,

perceive that the world not only does not satisfy but it’s evil,

grieve the death that’s in them and around them,

hunger and thirst for righteousness -no harm to anyone,

desire better, in terms of virtue and government, for themselves, their loved ones and the world,

confess their ignorance, weakness, fallibility and sin,

recognize their need for God and His government,

sees Jesus as God: everything good, and the answer to their need.

And, thanks be to God for His saving grace, this is who I am (increasingly becoming).

Jesus is calling you. How do I know? Because you’re reading this. All that is needed for you to be saved, to move from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, to pass from death to life, is to believe Jesus.

Hear Him with a hunger.

Start with John 1:1.

Believe.

Be saved.

Originally posted by Paul Luckett to Facebook here.

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From Judge To Father

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - From Judge To Father

God is just.

So why not just convict us of our crime and condemn us?

Jesus reveals the heart of God.

Through Jesus, God’s relationship to us changes from Judge to Father.

This is indescribably awesome and wonderful.

From before the beginning, this was God’s aim.

But to be just He must maintain justice and righteousness, to right the wrong, to exact payment for the debt, to balance the scale.

Jesus is the way He prepared to achieve righteousness and love.

Righteousness and Love.

Love.

He didn’t have to do it.

God could have utterly destroyed mankind and it would have been perfectly fitting to do so.

But not only did He prepare The Way to save us but to change our status from criminal to His child!

He didn’t have to do it.

So, what should it mean to us that He did, with such extensive planning, perfect painstaking execution and such extravagant expense to Himself?!

He didn’t have to do it.

But, He did.

I praise His holy name for it!

When we receive Him, The Way, we are given the right to be called children of God, never to be considered criminals again!

We, therefore should not reject His labor of Love but honor and respect it by accepting it and consider God as Father and never as Judge again.

Jesus said call Him, Abba, Father.

Hallelujah.

This shift from Judge to Father is huge.

God’s desire is not to punish us but to prepare us.

Like a good Father, He wants us to learn, so His work is not about letting us off the hook but putting us in a position with Himself where He can help us grow healthy and strong.

Things that happen in life can feel like punishment from a mean, angry God but that is never true for His children.

There’s discipline, but not punishment – correction but not condemnation.

Enjoy the peace of the shift Jesus achieves from Judge to Father.

Believe what Jesus reveals about God.

Know Him as Father, as His child.

Then face life with the joy, peace, confidence and resolve that affords.

‘But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’ – John 1:12-13

‘For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” ‘ -Romans 8:15

#perfectourlove

The Only Way To Call Jesus Lord

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - The Only Way To Call Jesus Lord
Photo Courtesy of Zoltan Toth – Flickr

“[…] no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” – 1 Corinthians 12:3

Because you’ve said “Jesus is Lord,” don’t read this and think that you’re in the clear.

You do realize that calling someone “Lord” indicates that you acknowledge their authority to tell you what to do, right?

“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” – Luke 6:46

Calling Jesus, “Lord” it is not about saying the words with your mouth but with your life.

Even demons recognized His title. What makes them demons was their rebelling against His will.

The line between the godly and the demonic is as simple as who’s rule you support: God’s or not. To be clear, any rule besides God’s is demonic, including yours.

But, even in that there’s grace.

“But what do you think?

A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went.

Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go.

Which of the two did the will of his father?

They said to Him, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.'”

– Matthew 21:28-32

All of us have areas in our lives that we have not given over to Christ’s lordship. We’re saying “I will not” because we’re comfortable with the demonic arrangements we’ve made for those parts of our lives.

The key to authentic faith and life in Christ is to trust Jesus. We must let God be true and believe His government produces life, while all others lead to death (whether it looks that way or not – many things that appear full of life are dying, e.g. a rose in a vase looks beautiful, it’s naturally a perennial [long living, enduring plant], but it began to die the moment it was cut – anything apart from God is dead).

When we belong to Christ, the Holy Spirit reveals areas in our hearts where Jesus is not King and one by one, with great violence, we must make war to turn them over to His rule.

It is in this process that though we formerly said, “I will not”, by the revelation of Christ and conviction of the Holy Spirit, we come to a place of repentance and obey, and in this struggle we truly say “Jesus is Lord” and can have confidence that we belong to Him.

It’s a work of the Holy Spirit.

What Being The Prodigal Son Taught Me About Being Made Perfect In Love

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com What Being The Prodigal Son Taught Me About Being Perfected In Love

As I was studying for an upcoming marriage ministry that Melissa and I are a part of, the lesson converged in a beautiful and unexpected way with my meditations on home and I hope it blesses you the way it blessed me.

Our marriage ministry class is going through a workbook called Husband & Wives (I highly recommend it) and we’re on the chapter about love. In it I came across 1 John 4:18 that says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”

It prompted the question, “What is the fear that this verse is referring to and what does it mean by torment?” Before I had completely formed the thought, I already knew in my heart what it meant. I am familiar with that torment.

It’s the torment of failing so miserably, being so broken, that no matter how you try, you’re utterly unable to fix it or to do anything that makes you worthy of acceptance. It’s the fear of rejection, of being abandoned and stranded, having no way home, it’s the terror of being alone.

And, that led me to understand what it meant to be “made perfect in love”. You know who was made perfect in love?

The Prodigal Son.

I know because I am the Prodigal Son. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15:11-32 take note that the son was loved by the father in such a way that “when he came to himself” (v17) he had reason to believe that he could return home. And, just as importantly, he also knew he could not return home and continue to live however he wanted -he had to repent (v18).

The son acknowledging his sin and assuming a posture of humility in his heart, began the trip home. He was on the way, but while “he was still a great way off” and before he could get out the apology he had been practicing, the father ran to him and embraced him. The son repented and asked to return home, not as a son, but as any other stranger whom his father might hire as a servant. “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.” (v23)

Rather than treat him as the prodigal and wayward son that he was, the father gave the son his best and restored him to what the father had always seen the son as: a prince. What amazing grace! It was as that moment, that what the son had only considered as a possibility before (maybe my father will accept me), he now knew irrevocably. It was then that the son was perfected in love because he knew that his acceptance was sure, because it was not based on his goodness but on the goodness of his father.

Hallelujah.

But, there’s more.

The father had another son. And as my mentor and spiritual father Pastor Gregory Jones would wisely point out, the lesson is as much about the second son as the first. The elder son who had remained home and who had been obedient was enraged at hearing of his father’s reception of his wanton and wasteful younger brother. But, “[the] father came out and pleaded with him”(v28) saying to the older son, “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.” (v31-32)

The lesson of the elder brother is this: you can “stay” in the house, do things that look right and be just as wayward in your heart as the prodigal son who “left”. To be perfected, we must have more than a mere association with the Father and more than works done out of rote obligation (Matthew 5:20). We have to know the Father (this is what Jesus came to teach us -John 14:6-7, John 17:1-4) and we must have the Father’s heart (when we believe Jesus, this is what He gives us -John 3).

To be made perfect in love is being assured of our acceptance in the beloved (Ephesians 1:6) because we know the goodness of the Father. Such love transforms us and gives us a heart to love the way he loves, not the world’s love that allows and approves of wrongdoing, but love that perfects, builds up and is gracious while affirming good and resisting evil. When we love the way He loves we become as He is and…

“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgement; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love cast out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.” -1 John 4:17-19

Whatever your proximity to God, no matter how far you think you’ve gotten, getting home takes only one step because God has been unceasingly moving towards you, His heart for you has never changed, before the beginning He made up His mind about you to love you. His love letter to us, the Bible, says that everyone who comes to Him, He will “by no means” turn away (John 6:37). And, the Way is Jesus who will teach us of the father’s goodness, give us the father’s heart, build us up into a spiritual home for others on this journey and perfect our love.

I’m a witness.

#perfectourlove