ABOUT BREAKFAST WITH DAD

This is Breakfast With Dad, a collection of devotions on books of the Bible that I send out to over 150 friends and family members. I hope you will take time to read the most recent blog and maybe one of two from past offerings. If you have an interest in studying the Bible or have been thinking about starting a daily devotion, this would be a good place to begin. I started writing these devotions when my youngest son moved away from home and was having a hard time in his life. I used to fix him a hot breakfast every morning before school, so I decided to send him spiritual food instead to encourage his heart. I hope these "breakfasts" encourage you.

Monday, February 3, 2020

1 John 5:16-17 Walk In the Light!

1 John 5:16-17  If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life.  I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death.  There is a sin that leads to death.  I am not saying that you should pray about that.  All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.  

God’s Spirit in Christians is the essential aspect or evidence that we possess eternal life.  Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ.  He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.  (2 Corinthians 1:21-22)  No other spirit can impart eternal life.  We who are born again are individually and collectively temples of God.  His Spirit abides within believers.  The Spirit of God reveals God to us in our souls.  His presence brings eternal life to us, for the Spirit is eternal.  Jesus’ blood has cleansed our souls, made our temples holy for the Spirit’s residency.  All our sins, past, present, and future, are continuously covered by the blood of the Lamb.  As we have already read, But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.  (I John 1:7)  When Jesus was talking to the teachers of the law, who claimed Jesus was performing miracles by the power of Satan, Jesus confronted their accusation with a warning for them, Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.  (Mark 3:29)  Eternal damnation is for those who challenge the Sprit’s authority by calling his work satanic, for no other way to eternal life exists outside the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit completes the work that the cross implemented for the salvation of mankind.  The Holy Spirit’s power was essential in the resurrection of Jesus, and his abiding power in us is our hope of resurrection.   The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.  And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he (God) will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.  (Romans 8:11)  Every Christian who partakes of this breakfast has God’s resurrection power.  The Spirit of God dwells richly in every believer.  The sin of eternal death is the sin of those who reject the Holy Spirit’s work, which is the power of the resurrection.  If people fail to honor the power of God within them, they tear down the way to everlasting life.  Jesus was angry with the Jewish scholars, for they believed as descendants of Abraham they possessed a special acceptance from God.  They thought anything other than what they believed about God was heresy.  Therefore, Jesus the Sabbath breaker and his miracles were to them satanic in origin.  John the Baptist discounted this idea of rightness with God by relying on their inheritance from Abraham by saying God could make the stones they were standing on Abraham’s children.  Without repentance and turning to God they were hopelessly lost.  When Jesus was baptized by John, the Holy Spirit consecrated Jesus, separating him from the idea that Jewishness alone brought favor with God.  From the time of his baptism on, we see Jesus’ ministry flourish with signs and wonders, revealing that God was in him and that the power of God was evident in everything He was doing.  When the teachers of the law challenged Jesus’s ministry and the power within him by claiming all of it was a product of Satan, they were challenging the only way to eternal life.  They were committing the unforgivable sin, for their attitude of debunking the Spirit’s resurrecting work would lead them to everlasting damnation.

Often people are concerned about whether or not they have committed the unforgivable sin.  This anxiety is easily answered by the fact they are concerned about such a situation.  In Hebrews we see a very clear depiction of sin that is unforgivable.  This sin is putting Jesus Christ on the cross again, killing him from your personal life.  The world thought they could rid themselves of this Jesus when they killed him, but they were mistaken, for He was resurrected just as He had predicted.  Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.  (John 2:18)  When people crucify Jesus a second time, this time in their own lives, they abandon the only way to God.  In this situation, eliminating Jesus Christ completely from your life also eliminates any anxiety about committing the unforgivable sin.  If people have truly erased Jesus from their reality, then Jesus and the gospel is of no concern to them.  They would not fret about committing an unforgivable sin, for Christ no longer exists in their consciousness.  Knowing Jesus is not something you worry about when He is not part of your world.  He would be to them as having the abominable snowman in their lives.  He is not in your life because he is not real, so you do not live your daily life in fear, believing someday this creature will knock on your door.  Jesus is not in your thinking because He has been eliminated from ever being real to you.  You are not going to live your life fretting about him, for He is not real, not part of your thinking processes.  He is absent from your awareness of life, for He is dead to you.  In Hebrews 6, we see the condition of people who have eliminated Jesus from their thinking processes: no more thought about him, no more concern about him.  They have moved far beyond this idea of Jesus being God.  For them, the idea of Jesus being God has been left in their dust.  Why?  Because they have crucified Jesus afresh; they have killed him from their lives.  He is in the grave as far as they are concerned; He is totally, one-hundred percent dead to them.  CONSEQUENTLY, NO FRETTING FOR THEM.  WHY FRET OVER A DEAD MAN; HE HAS NO POWER OVER THEM.  Unfortunately, just as He has no power over them, they have no power through him, for they have forfeited their inheritance as sons and daughters of the Most High God.  It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance.  To their loss they are CRUCIFYING THE SON OF GOD ALL OVER AGAIN and subjecting him to public disgrace.  (Hebrews 6:4-6)  If the name of Jesus is brought up in their midst; He is open to ridicule by them, for his name is insignificant to them; has no more relevancy to them than any other name in the universe.  But the Bible says, Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.  (Acts 4:12)

All sin leads to death if it is not confessed and placed under the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ.  All believers know that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Romans 6:23)  Only a belief in Jesus Christ and his propitiation for our sin can lead us to a right place before a holy God.  If we fail to place our trust in Jesus Christ and his righteousness, we will never escape the judgment of death on our lives.  Eternity with God will be lost to us.  However, the Bible theme is eternity is available through accepting God’s provision for life: Jesus Christ.  Praise God, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.  (1 John 1:9)  Repentance is the first step to rightness with God.  After that we must elevate Jesus as an intermediary between us and a holy God.  Without his righteousness taking the place of our lack of holiness, we would always be under the penalty of death, definitely estranged from the Creator Father.  Sin has to be dealt with before we can enter into the presence of an eternal God.  No man can put away even one sin from another person’s life; no man can forgive you for your sins—that is the prerogative of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  The Bible says, We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6)  Every man or woman is responsible for his or her life.  Each person must find salvation in the perfect works of Jesus Christ.  The unforgivable sin is the denying of the power of God to save.  Our salvation is dependent on the Spirit of God in us; He is the hope of our resurrection.  When we deny his residency in us, when we claim that the only power of thought in us comes from our own flesh or from an adverse power such as Satan, we are blaspheming the Holy Spirit.  We are saying that his residence is not important or real.  If we disclaim the Holy Spirit’s work, He who came to reveal Jesus Christ in us, we are blaspheming the Holy Spirit.  When we discount his works in us, we are eliminating the gate to God: Jesus Christ.   The Holy Spirit illuminates Jesus Christ in our lives.  Shine for him.  Jesus said, You are the light of the world.  A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  (Matthew 5:14)  Without him in us, we are lost, captivated by the consequence of sin: death.  A man without the Holy Spirit is a man without life: the walking dead.  By rejecting the Holy Spirit, claiming the only spirit in us is man’s spirit, we are abandoning the power of the resurrection, the power to rescue us from death.  But dear friends around this breakfast table, you are not in that hopeless state or you would not be partaking of this breakfast.  As the writer in Hebrews 6  states, this position of crucifying Jesus afresh is not your position.  The fruit of your life reveals that you possess the love of God.  Your love for others, your tender and merciful attitude towards the hurting in the world reveal your tenderness towards the Father God.  You know Christ because you love.  Rejoice for God is rich in you.  You have not been abandoned in the desert of life.  You are part of the living body of Christ, forever in the presence of God as sons and daughters.  Live your life for God, reveal his image in this world.  Speak the words the Holy Spirit gives your.  Always be sensitive to the reality of the Spirit inside you, for He desires to be your comforter, your counselor, your personal friend at all times.  Rejoice in the life the Spirit has given you, live with confidence in the Lord, for He has brought you into life everlasting.   

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