₦airaland Forum

noted.

noted

afternoon..

Afternoon

calmG:
Good morning Jiggaz I've a question for you...
Its about some of your post.

Good afternoon bro. Alright, go ahead and ask me the question.

I think America needs to stop Iran, if not.....

Hmmmmm... nawa!! na real wa!!!

He has cancelled it.

morning.... .... .....

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morning

peachesandroses:
My highest goal!! to be with Jesus!

Yes oo!! You will meet Him soon at the Rapture!!

morning

Danielgabby:
@jiggaz ..NYC 1..u actually know the truth......We are Men Made Perfect (heb 12:23). We have the Spirit of God in us to know the things which are freely given to us of God.......The grace is sufficient for us i.e the grace of salvation.....

Thanx bro. Am happy you know the truth also.

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evening

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Here’s a question grace preachers hear a lot: “If we are already holy, then why does God call us to be holy?” Answer: He’s calling us to be who we truly are. He is saying, “You are my sanctified children. Act like it. Be who I made you to be.”

As D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said:

Holiness is not something we are called upon to do in order that we may become something; it is something we are to do because of what we already are…

“Paul, I’m still confused. It seems there are a lot of scriptures exhorting us to become holy. How do we reconcile those with other scriptures that say that we are already holy?” The best answer I’ve heard comes from Bill Gillham, who compares Christians to oak trees:

Are Christians a truly holy people, or are we trying to become a holy people?… As an oak sapling grows, it doesn’t get “oakier.” Oak is oak. It simply matures into what it is, a full-grown oak tree.

You don’t become an oak tree by acting like an oak tree; nor do you become holy by acting holy. Jesus makes you holy. Your part is to mature into what He has already made you. This takes time, but just as a baby never becomes more human as it grows, you will never become more holy as you mature. You simply grow into who God has already made you to be. Here’s Bill Gillham again:

Needless to say, maturity doesn’t occur in one giant leap, but through a process: “But we all … are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Notice it’s “from glory to glory,” not “from garbage to glory.” You are already holy in Christ … Just as an oak sapling does not get oakier as it matures, neither does a new creature in Christ get holier, more forgiven, more accepted, etc.

Critics of the modern grace message say we who preach it are opposed to holy living. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we are opposed to is the old habit of trying to make yourself holy by acting holy . You just can’t do it. The standard is too high. But the good news declares God makes us holy. He takes the shards of our broken lives and makes something beautiful, pleasing, sweet-smelling, and Christ-like.

Now that we have a good understanding of why the Bible calls us to be holy, we can look at some of the NT scriptures on holiness:

To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints (Romans 1:7a, ESV). Be saintly because you are saints, as Paul says many times in his letter to the Romans.

Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness (Romans 6:19b). Given that Christ has already sanctified us, a more accurate translation might be “unto holiness” as in, “Just as you used to live unto wickedness when you were wicked, live unto holiness now that you are holy.”

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life (Romans 6:22). A better translation may be, “have fruit unto sanctification.” Holy fruit are reaped not manufactured. Like eternal life, fruit are gifts, not wages (John 3:16, 5:21).

To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be His holy people … (1 Corinthians 1:2a). You are sanctified so act like it.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity … (Colossians 3:5a). If you’re a butterfly, don’t act like a caterpillar. If you have been given a new nature, don’t act in accordance with your old one. That’s hypocrisy. It’s pretending to be someone you are not.

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality … (1 Thessalonians 4:3). It is God’s will that you should be sanctified in your conduct, not because your salvation hinges on it, but your wellbeing does. Sin is destructive.

Each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God (1 Thessalonians 4:4–5). You know who your Father is so don’t act like someone who doesn’t.

May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through (1 Thessalonians 5:23a). Sanctification is God’s work, not yours. Just as His gift of salvation is something to work out in your life, so is His sanctification. You already have it, so enjoy it!

But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do (1 Peter 1:15). You are not holy because you act holy. You are holy because you are children of a holy Father. Indeed, you are a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9). Be who you truly are.

New Testament exhortations to live holy should not be read as a self-help guide to holiness. Rather, they are pictures of the wholesome, healthy life we get to enjoy as we allow Christ to express His holy life through us.

New Testament exhortations to live holy are advertisements for the abundant life that is already ours in Christ.


https://escapetoreality.org/2014/08/22/be-holy/

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Believers, have you ever tried going about your business outside in the bright morning sun with a candle to help you see straight; even on a cloudy day when we know the sun is still shining but we can't see it because of the clouds? If the winds, floods and rains don't put out the flame, you'll end up spending your time trying to keep the candle lit, unable to concentrate or enjoy the beauty around you, bumping into everything and everyone, stumbling often and falling!

But this is what many of us do. Many of us shun the gift of righteousness that God freely gives to us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, the Bright and Morning Star, and hold up our efforts at keeping the Ten Commandments as the light to guide how we live; our own righteousnesses. Many believers use their law-keeping as the light to their path forgetting John 8:12- "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.”"

Like sheep that have their own torchlights, many depend on their own righteousnesses which are from keeping the Ten Commandments to help them see straight and guide them on the right path but still say "The Lord is my Shepherd!" In doing this, many are cut off from Christ! Galatians 5:4 says-
"For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace."

Calling on the name of Jesus for forgiveness here is an effort in futility because Christ becomes of no effect to you when you mix law and grace. The candles (righteousness from works of the law) that such hold up while they profess to be under the Sun of Righteousness get hit by the winds and rains so it's either they're trying to put it on or it just went out; trying to stop sinning or falling into sin!

Because our Saviour Jesus Christ -the Light of the world, the Sun of Righteousness, the Bright and Morning Star is no longer of effect in their lives, they grope in darkness in broad daylight as it is written in isaiah 59:8

"We grope for the wall like the blind,
And we grope as if we had no eyes;
We stumble at noonday as at twilight;
We are as dead men in desolate places."

Believers, we are not under Law but under Grace! The Sun of Righteousness shines His Light on all who believe and receive His gift of Righteousness; all who forsake theirs which comes from keeping the Law.

At the cross, God performed righteous exchange, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." 2 Corinthians 5:21.

God didn't just sweep our entire lifetime of sins under the carpet. They were punished in the body of our Lord Jesus. He put all of our sins on Jesus so that we can have all of His righteousness. God is a just God and will never condemn or punish you for the same sins that Christ has already been condemned and punished for. God is righteous in making the sinner righteous!

Trying to keep the Law in order to "maintain your salvation" is telling Him that what our Lord Jesus did for you on the cross is not enough!

But His gift of everlasting righteousness is not a license to sin! It is the key to right living. God hates sin but loves the sinner, much like (but faaaar better than) how a dad who is also an expert oncologist hates the cancer in his beloved child. So what does He do? He fills us with the only effective sin "chemo" that He made available to believers in Christ - the Holy Spirit. His eyes burn at and destroy sin but radiate perfect love for the sinner. His Spirit transforms us to the image of His glory, from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18.) We get to be free from the clutches of sin and live right and not by our efforts but Christ in us!

Believers, ask our heavenly Father in Christ to help you depend solely on His gift of righteousness and not yours from deeds of the Law that can never make you righteous in God's sight. Why be cut off from Christ by your efforts at law-keeping in order to get right with God?

Build your house on the Rock (the Righteousness of God) and not on the sand (your candle in the sun aka efforts at keeping the Law.) When the rains, floods and winds come, your Light will still be shining, even when it's cloudy!

Believe Right and you will Live Right!

http://rightbelieving101..nl/2017/02/the-light-of-world.html?m=1

When many of us believers think of the word Repentance, we think "feeling really bad because we sinned," "promising God that we will stop sinning," and "making the decision to live a holy life from now on." But did you notice that there is no Saviour Jesus in this equation? It all rests on you. Jesus does not do anything here. This is a Judas kind of repentance - towards self and not towards God. This is repentance to death and not repentance to life. The Parable of the Lost Sheep shows us what true repentance is - a gift from God.

Luke 15: 4 - 7 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ 7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance."
Let's note five things that happened in this passage:

1. The sheep got lost (it left the flock either by mistake or on purpose; bottomline is it got separated from the Shepherd)

2. The Shepherd went to look for the sheep and found the sheep

3. The Shepherd was not mad at the sheep when he found it. He didn't care if it was dirty, smoking, fornicating, gay, stealing, bleeding, sick, whatever. He didn't tell the sheep "stop all the bad things you are doing or else I will not save you. In fact, I will punish you." Rather, He was ecstatic! He was just very happy to have found it.

4. After the sheep was found, the Shepherd carried it home, on His shoulders, rejoicing. He never asked it to walk by itself or do anything to make up for its bad behaviour or earn the right to be carried.

5. We know the sheep repented because Jesus said "likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance."

Just in case you were wondering, we (believers in Christ) are the sheep and Christ, the Lord, is our Shepherd.
If you look closely, you'll find out that the sheep did only two things in the passage. The first is it got LOST. The second, it ALLOWED ITSELF TO BE CARRIED when it was found by the Shepherd. Neither involved determining to put an end to being bad or doing good works. The sheep knew that it was helpless and could do nothing by itself, as Christ said in John 15:5-
“...for without Me you can do nothing."

Did you also notice that the sheep did not find its way to the Shepherd by itself, as it is written in John 6:44 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day." And there we were thinking that we, in our good sense, decided to forsake sin and follow Jesus when in reality, it was our heavenly Father that made it happen! Knowing this makes it hard for one to condemn others who are yet to receive their invite to God's table Rather, you extend an invite to them.

The Shepherd did everything, as He is offering to carry you today. This level of love and compassion aka the "goodness of God" shown to someone who has gone astray is what leads to true repentance. In order for repentance to take place, you need to see how helpless you are without Christ and even this takes God’s grace as we see in the story of Cornelius' repentance to life in Acts 10-11. Peter's sermon did not even hint at "repentance" as the world knows it yet the Holy Spirit fell on all those who heard him. But some Jews were aghast at this. How could Peter associate with this Gentile sinner Cornelius? Peter explained what happened and " When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, “Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.”" Acts 11:18
Repentance is a gift!

Repentance to life is not beating your breast in regret for your sins, doing restitution to assuage your guilt and promising God that you will be good. This kind of Judas repentance smacks of self-righteousness (how could "I" have done this?) and leads to death. It also usually comes when a person is suffering the consequences of particular actions, like the prodigal son who went back home because he was hungry and not because he was sorry or loved and missed the Father. Suffering does not lead to true repentance. It is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. Romans 2:4

"Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?"

The kind of unconditional love that the Father showed to the returnee prodigal son is what leads to repentance. Just think what would have happened to the son if the Father had kicked him out or told him to go and do restitution before coming to Him.

Pastors and leaders, standing at the pulpit and threatening people with curses and judgment for their inability to be righteous by the Ten Commandments (which no one can) does not lead to repentance. It leads to more sin and death! The letter kills. Preach God's grace and Grace in the person of our Saviour Jesus will teach the people to repent to life and live right.

Repentance to life is a gift that only God can grant. But many of us believers do not see how helpless we are and how much we need God's gift of repentance because His mercy in our lives is so supernaturally natural that we think that we "did good all by ourselves." We don't watch porn/steal/fornicate, etc so we look down on others who do and tell them to "repent, or else...!," not realising the log in our own eye.

We forget James 2:10 which shows us that all it takes to be guilty of breaking the whole law is to slip up in one area: without God's gift of righteousness by faith through Christ, the one who feels relief to learn that it is his neighbour's house that is on fire afterall and not his own house is in the same boat of unrighteousness as the one who fornicates or molests children- this one does not "love thy neighbour as thyself," the second greatest commandment under the Law.

This lack of true repentance is why many Christians are quick to judge and condemn others for the things they do instead of encouraging them in Christ and unveiling His love to them as shown in the Parable of the Lost Sheep. We tend to forget that if it wasn't for God's grace in our lives, we would do worse than these beloved people!

Repentance to death is being ashamed of sins committed because we think they are beneath us; it is making the decision to be "righteous from now on" on our own, forgetting what Paul said in Romans 7:18-
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find."

Repentance to death is trying to set things right with God by our own efforts (like Judas trying to return the money with which he betrayed our Saviour.) It is rejecting the gifts of righteousness and no condemnation that we have in Christ Jesus and looking to ourselves for our righteousness by trying to keep the Ten Commandments in order to get right with God. Believers here only succeed in cutting themselves off from Christ, as it is written in Galatians 5:4 -
"For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace."
There is no Jesus here. No one can sustain that kind of lifestyle on their own. If we could, there would have been no need for Jesus to come and save us.

Repentance to life is a gift from God. It is having a change of heart about God and it comes from knowing the love of Christ. True repentance comes from realising just how much God loves us and that He gave Jesus to die for our sins. It comes from knowing that there is no condemnation for you when you are in Christ; even when you sin and go astray like the sheep, He will carry you and help you with no questions asked, so you get to live right.
It is knowing God as "Abba, Father" whose desire is for you to "prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers." - 3 John 1:2.

In essence, repentance to life is changing your mind towards God- seeing that we have in Him a loving Father who gives us all things freely (Romans 8:32) and not a Taskmaster who is waiting intently to catch us when we mess things up so He can let the devil have a go at us!

1 John 4: 19 says "We love because He first loved us." When you start to realise just how much you are loved by our heavenly Father, not only will you have this change of heart to love God, you will also have no desire to return to your vomit! It is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. Romans 2:4.

Notice that the only way the sheep got home was by being carried on the shepherd's shoulders. Our good works and various fasts can't take us to heaven or help us fully enjoy God's blessings here on earth. Only God's grace can. And all who are in Christ can have it. "...much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) Romans 5:17.

Also, no one can snatch the sheep away while it is with the Shepherd - John 10:29-30 - "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.”

You can't lose your salvation when our Abba Father is the one holding you. He will never let you fall. No matter what you do, He will never leave you nor forsake you. He will help you and uphold you with His victorious right Hand. If your salvation depends on how well you keep the Ten Commandments - on you - and not on Christ's finished work, you've already failed!

A little further down in Luke 15 we find the Parable of the Lost Son, aka The Parable of the Prodigal Son. The younger son didn't remember his father when he still had his inheritance. He did not repent/return home to his father because he was sorry. He returned because he was hungry!

I like to think that he was dirty, hungry and smelling of pigs, an unclean thing to the Jews, when he returned home. Everyone would have done SMH at him. Yet, his Father embraced and kissed him in his 'pigfully' unclean state, treating him to the best clothes and the fatted calf. This is the treatment you get when you come to Jesus just the way you are, sins and all! No effort. No trying. He will clean you up and set you up after you have messed everything up.

Why don't you give up trying to get right with God on your own (repentance to death like Judas!) and just ask our Saviour Jesus for help? In fact, that is why He came - to bear your sins, burdens and judgment. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28 - Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." See, it says ALL and not just people who have managed to not "do bad things". In fact, if you can manage, then you don't need Jesus.

John 6:37 says "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out." I believe that you who are reading this and desire to know more about our wonderful Saviour are being called right now.

Would you like to enjoy God's Grace and live righteously in Christ Jesus? Please pray this prayer - or even better, just go with your own flow. Like our heavenly Father, we prefer our kids' badly drawn and typo-filled birthday cards to the fanciest Hallmark card in the world

In Jesus' name, thank you Father for grace to cast all my problems and worries on Jesus. Thank you for He laid down His life for me and by so doing made my sins - past, present and future - forgiven. Thank you for all my sins have been judged in Him. Thank you for now I am free indeed. I believe that He did all these things for me and I am thankful. Thank you for you give me the willingness and the ability to do your good pleasure. Lord, I ask that you take control of my life from this moment on. In Jesus name, it is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me. Thank you Heavenly Father for saving me, in Jesus name. Amen

Believe Right and you will Live Right!

http://rightbelieving101..nl/2017/02/repentance-what-is-it.html?m=1

afternoon