Friend’s Of God
John 15:15 (NKJV) No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
Jesus in this verse is telling us that God doesn’t want to have a slave/Master relationship with us but a son/Father relationship with us. Yet too many Christians are living as servants instead of sons.
To many believer have lived there lives with an Old Testament picture of God, yet Jesus came to reveal the true Nature of God.
John 14:6-9 (NKJV) 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7 "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him." 8 Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ’Show us the Father’?
Most of The Old Testament was a covenant set in stone with a law that man could not keep.
In the New Testament we have a covenant between God and Jesus and He has kept the whole thing and gave it to us.
Ephesians 2:4-10 (NKJV) 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 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. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
So we see that we couldn’t earn this great Salvation and there is only one thing I can do to get into this great work of Christ and that is to believe.
The thing that God so upset with the children were there unbelief and it was really the only sin that kept them out of the promise land. The land of Milk, Honey and rest.
Hebrews 3:7-19 (NKJV) 7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you will hear His voice, 8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, 9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. 10 Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ’They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ 11 So I swore in My wrath, ’They shall not enter My rest.’ " 12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 15 while it is said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." 16 For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? 17 Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? 19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Hebrews 4:1-3 (NKJV) 1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. 3 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: "So I swore in My wrath, ’They shall not enter My rest,’ " although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
This was all done from the foundations of the world. God wants us to enter into His rest and the way we do this, is through accepting what Jesus has already done for us. You can keep going over and over, I have to do better, I have to do this or that, or we can start saying Thank-You Jesus for already doing it all for me and watch how you start sinning less and your life becomes so much more restful.
“The Gospel that Jesus Gave us, this Gospel of grace does not give us a license to sin. On the contrary, It give the power for people to sin no more.”
Watch This:
Luke 19:1-10 (NKJV) 1 Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. 2 Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. 3 And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house." 6 So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. 7 But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, "He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner." 8 Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold." 9 And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; 10 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
Jesus never asked Him for anything, He just loved Him and came to His house and look at what Zacchaeus does, He gives half to the poor and gives back anything that He might have stolen.
WOW! True repentance’s not from the Law but from Grace.
Do you see it. God our father has given us His grace and His grace give us the power to overcome sin and leads us to repentance. God Is Good!
