Monday 012725
Don’t let me or my writings influence or scare you in any way, instead, allow me to be used as a vessel to open the Word, just a little bit, and hopefully, together we are going to read and study His Word, and let God teach us what He wants us to hear.
Since the beginning of this study, our vision has been that we are ONLY going to follow what is found in the Holy Bible, that pertains to us, and we realize that it’s ONLY from our own effort that we put into this study, that we’re going to take anything away for our own use.
The verses we are going to study tonight:
Titus 2:11; Ephesians 2:8; Revelation 12:7-12; Genesis 1:1, :2, 3:1, 4:9-10, 6:1-2, :4, :13, 7:13.
Salvation means deliverance or healing. It is the word Paul most often uses to denote deliverance from sin and its deadly consequences.
Titus 2:11 ‘…For God has revealed his grace for the salvation of all people…’ GNT (Good News Translation)
Salvation is the Gift that God gave us so that we would be able to be in His presence.
Ephesians 2:8 ‘…For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God…’ NASB (New American Standard Bible)
So, if our lives are going pretty well, we seem to be okay in our relationships, we have a lot of different friends, we have a great job, we’ve been able to pay all the bills lately, we’re beginning to save money for our future, the kids are all healthy and we’re feeling pretty good about the way we’ve been living our lives.
This person might look at their physical life and ask the question why do I need salvation?
But what about that person where things are going terrible, their life really isn’t all that perfect, their relationship between them and their spouse might be going down a rocky road, their job isn’t really what they hoped for, they’re JUST making it paycheck to paycheck, their kids are having problems in school and it seems like everyone in the family has been sick a lot lately.
This person might look at their physical life and ask the question what I ever did to deserve this, let alone worry about Salvation.
There is nothing more important to our eternal disposition than Salvation.
Someone’s disposition is their mood or their general attitude toward life.
If you woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, you might need a disposition makeover.
If you are having a really, really bad day and it seems there is nothing going your way, you may need a disposition makeover.
If you’re waiting at the airport for the ‘vacation of all vacations’ to begin; you, your spouse, your kids … and then the CANCELLED light flashes over the flight schedule screen, after you calm down, you may need a disposition makeover.
If your cat got into your book report that you were proof reading before turning it in for your final grade except now, half of the pages are either missing or torn into bits, you might need to get rid of the cat and then maybe you might need a disposition makeover.
But just think of all of the things that can get messed up in our lives today.
And now for just a second, stop, step back and breathe … now realize, none of what we’ve just been talking or thinking about has anything to do with our Eternal Disposition.
It doesn’t matter whether we are or we’re not in a relationship with God; it doesn’t matter if we go to church every Sunday; it doesn’t matter if we feed every hungry person at the intersection on Wednesday afternoon; it doesn’t matter but for one thing and that is that we realize that ALL of us, living on this earth today, we are ALL sinners, and ONE DAY, we are ALL OF US, going to need SALVATION from God.
Who says so you might ask?
The easiest answer to that question is GOD SAYS.
But the best part of SALVATION is that it has already been freely given to us; all we have to do is accept the Gift that God has already tried giving us.
Here is the greatest verse in the entire Bible and too many people don’t even know the verse is in our Bibles:
Ephesians 2:8 ‘…For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God…’ NASB (New American Standard Bible)
This should be the most popular verse in the Bible and hardly anyone knows of it.
It is impossible for us human beings to get into heaven on our own. It doesn’t matter how we live our lives; it is never going to be good enough to get ourselves into heaven after we die.
It doesn’t matter how good our job is or how much money we donate to charity. It doesn’t matter how many homeless we feed on the street corner, none of these matters.
I’m sure there are many man-made churches today that want you to know that if you put more money in the offering basket at church, you’d be better off but, in all reality, God doesn’t need your money and most times all you’d be doing is helping out that pastor or the church he’s from.
These man-made churches don’t tell you about this Gift that God is trying to give you, mostly because its ‘FREE’ and the church won’t get anything from it.
I was writing my blog and posting it onto several ‘FREE’ blogsites, only to later find out that free wasn’t necessarily free, in some of these man-made company’s eyes.
When I began tonight’s lesson, I got just about this far in the paper when I started reading through the book of Genesis, going along chapter by chapter, and writing down some notes for the study.
When all of a sudden, God shook me and woke me up and showed me clearly what I had been trying to write down all along.
In the entire Bible, from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, there is really only two words that define the entire Bible.
BELIEVE and UNBELIEVE
We either BELIEVE what God has told us through the written Word that’s in the Bible or we UNBELIEVE what the Word is telling us.
If we UNBELIEVE what has been written in the Word, we in essence, suffer from the same thing that so many have suffered from that’s written about in the Bible.
It’s an overly simple answer. So, let’s go back to the Bible.
Satan didn’t BELIEVE God was powerful, strong, perfect and Holy, he thought he could do better. He was cast down to hell before mankind was even created and put onto this world.
Revelation 12
vs7 ‘…And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war…’
vs8 ‘…and they did not prevail, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven…’
vs9 ‘…And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him…’
vs10 ‘…Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, the one who accuses them before our God, day and night…’
vs11 ‘…And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death…’
vs12 ‘…For this reason, rejoice, your heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you with great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time…’ NASB (New American Standard Bible)
The above passage all began before man was even created and put on this earth.
Genesis 1:1 ‘…In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…’ NASB (New American Standard Bible)
The next vs …
Genesis 1:2 ‘…And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters…’ NASB (New American Standard Bible)
What happened to the sun? in vs1 the heavens and the earth were created, in vs2, the sun is gone … something happened between vs1 and vs2.
I believe it was from the evil contained in Satan himself that has caused this world to be such an evil place for us to live in.
Beginning in Genesis 1, the week of Creation was fulfilled by our Creator, God.
God created the planet earth and all of the other stars and planets in our solar system. God created all of the animals and human beings on our planet that we see today. But back in the Garden where God placed the first human beings, Adam and Eve; Satan crept in again.
Genesis 3:1 ‘…Now the serpent was more cunning than any animal of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God really said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden…’ NASB (New American Standard Bible)
Throughout time, the devil has kept this evil desire in his heart to be better than God. Throughout history, he has attempted to make mankind fail so one day, in his mind, he could defeat the Wonders of God.
God had created a world of amazing beauty, but Satan made some of God’s creations fail. Satan thought by doing this he could eventually defeat God.
From the garden, man was told to be fruitful and multiply. God wanted man to populate this world with his offspring, but again, Satan wanted that request to fail.
Genesis 4
vs9 ‘…Then the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper…’
vs10 ‘…Then He said, what have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to Me from the ground…’ NASB (New American Standard Bible)
Cain killed his brother Abel and was cursed by God. Again, in history, Satan had his influence on mankind. The entire time, Satan trying to defeat God.
Genesis 6
vs1 ‘…Now it came about, when mankind began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them…’
vs2 ‘…that the sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose…’ NASB (New American Standard Bible)
Once again, Satan seen the success in God’s creation and in his jealousy, he wanted to destroy this creation.
These ‘sons of God’ were God’s male angels, and these ‘daughters of mankind’ were the female offspring of God’s creation.
Satan devised the scheme where he could overthrow God by polluting the offspring that resulted from sexual encounter between the human women and the angelic men. These sexual relations resulted in the giants spoken about in the Bible.
Genesis 6:4 ‘…The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of mankind, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown…’ NASB (New American Standard Bible)
The ‘Nephilim’ are a mysterious group of people or beings that are described as being very large and strong and are said to have lived before the Flood. Their origins are disputed. The author of the Book of Enoch, believe they are the offspring of fallen angels and human women.
Genesis 6:13 ‘…Then God said to Noah, the end of humanity has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of people; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth…’ NASB (New American Standard Bible)
God destroyed His creations on this earth all but eight individuals he saved on the Ark.
Genesis 7:13 ‘…On this very same day Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark…’ NASB (New American Standard Bible)
We’ve run long in this study, but it is good that we made it through the flood. The earth will again start fresh and new.
There will be eight humans to repopulate the earth, Satan remains but God is in control. We’ll continue on from here.
I love y’all. Keep your Bibles open and keep studying His Word. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.
Jesus, I pray that those ears and eyes, either listening or seeing this message today would be opened to the very fullest and allow Your love to come inside their lives and comfort them. Teach us Jesus. Protect us. We love You. Amen
InHIM. ><)))o>