NCarolinian

Jesus said to His disciples - "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." - Luke 9:23 There is a formula that Christ outlines here - Answer = A + B + C "Come after me" = Deny yourself (disown/abstain) + take up your cross daily (self-dying, calling, commission) + Follow Christ (not be a "fan", not have Jesus follow you) If anyone would come after me is the answer to the equation.  The rest of the arrangement is how one gets to that point.  We are encouraged to deny ourselves.  In the original Greek that meant disowning one's self or abstaining from selfish desires.  We all have to take care of daily needs, but when it comes to time and energies correctly spent - Christ gets first dibs, then others, finally yourself. We are also encouraged as part of the equation to take up our cross daily.  Think about the audience Jesus was speaking to - His disciples.  Taking up a cross AND on a daily ba...

One of my favorite events of The Bible describes a place of maturity in my Christian walk that I desire to acquire.  The passage is Daniel 3 .  The account is  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and the Fiery Furnace . Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar called a meeting of all his "big-wig" officials.  Before this meeting, the King had a statue built in his likeness and a decree transcribed to convey that anyone who did not worship King Nebuchadnezzar or his image at the sound of music would be killed by being tossed into a fiery furnace. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego - who were really Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah ( Daniel 1:6-7 ) - were three Jewish administrators appointed by the King at the request of Daniel over the province of Babylon ( Daniel 2:49 ).  They heard the decree but were not going to bow the knee.  Then some "astrologers" (interesting category of palace people) came forward and called-out these three Jews on their disobedience to Ki...

After I became a Christian and committed my first sin as a Believer, I believed that particular sin and any others that I didn't catch that became past sins were covered by Christ's sacrifice on the Cross.  From then on, anything I knew was a sin or felt badly about I asked for forgiveness.  Now-a-days, I am finally getting the message - all my sins are covered, taken care of, paid for.  Jesus Has Not come back and offered to die for each individual sin as they have happened over the years.  Neither has Jesus come back time-after-time to die for my sins that I would commit.  He has died once and for them all (past, present, and future).   For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. - 1 Peter 3:18 This does not give me a license to go out and sin simply because Christ has flipped the bill for my eternal soul.  No.  Instead of giving me a "freedom to sin", I now have AND desire to live in the f...

The first clothing humanity put on their bodies was either a sheered animal or the first animal sacrifice.   Genesis 3:21 says, The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. So, the fact that the Lord God made the garments out of skin makes me select the latter - animal sacrifice - because an animal needs it's skin to survive.   Joseph Prince agrees with this by stating,  "The Bible says that after Adam and Eve sinned by partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God 'made tunics of skin, and clothed them.'  The first time an animal was sacrificed to cover man's sins happened right there in the garden of Eden.  All the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament are shadows of Jesus Christ, who is the substance." ( Destined To Reign , pp.219-220) Since Father God sent His Word in flesh, Jesus, to visit humanity and redeem our relationship with Him, Believers in Christ can find three better outfits provided by...

Once upon a time I thought I had a friend, but all those good memories we shared still did not make up for the amount of maturity he needed to achieve by this stage in life and he could not take some friendly, constructive advice from me and terminated our relationship. Once upon a time family that I always visited, worshiped with, ate with, and created special memories with just stopped it's communication. Once upon a time I had a vision of what my family and future would look like, but it didn't exactly work out. I would bet that most of us can start out with this phrase "Once upon a time" and tell a different ending than happy.  I have had my share of disappointments so far just like anybody else.  And it is interesting to note that those disappointments come mainly from people closest to me.  Considering there is always somebody that has it worse off than me I am thankful for just a small taste of disappointment. Life is going to deal it's disappoi...

My dad recently delivered the Sunday morning message to his church.  He gets this blog going by stating the following about Ephesians 6:17-20 -  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.  Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains.Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. "What is it about our salvation that makes it such a critical piece of armor?  We need to have the full knowledge of our salvation and have the helmet firmly in place because if you try to enter the battle without it, guaranteed you’ll lose your head." (Dad/Tim Pritchard in purple) Paul says in Eph. 6: 11 that we are to put on the whole armor of God, so...

I have heard the Holy Spirit convicts everyone of sin.  Those that still need Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior definitely receive some form of conviction because they still need to make a decision to repent and follow the ways of Christ Jesus instead of continuing on a path of destruction. Are Believers convicted in any way?  Does the Holy Spirit convict Christians?  I immediately think of Romans 8:1 -  "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," .  However, for "those who are in Christ Jesus" , the  "no condemnation"  refers to judgment .  This judgment from God is eternal death for your sin past, present, and future, which has been taken care of by Christ on the Cross at Calvary. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23) With that being truth what about another Scripture from James that says,  "Therefore confess your sins to e...