David Coffield, Featured Writers, Guest Post, Jesus, Messiah, Yahweh, Yehovah

Called . . . Beloved . . . Kept

Our couple’s study is working on Jude, and I was struck by verse 1.  “…To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ.”  This verse says nothing about our responsibility or actions—only the sovereign work of our Father.

“Called”.  Funny that I have never heard a group of Christians calling themselves “the called”.  It emphasizes the sovereign work and choice of God.  God doesn’t call those who are worthy because there is no one worthy.  He saves sinners.  We will be sinners until we stand in His presence and this body of flesh is done away with.  It is not about my works or efforts but about His mercy and grace.

“Beloved”.  This describes our relationship with our Father.  For some inscrutable reason, He has chosen to love us.  He can’t love us more than He does or less than He does.  He loves us perfectly and deeply.  We are always on His thoughts and in His heart.  I think we do a sad disservice when we teach people that our sin separates us in the relationship and causes the Father to be angry with us.  We end up living as Pharisees constantly concerned that we are not good enough and striving to do more and be better.

There is nothing good about sin.  Romans 6 gives 3 reasons not to be involved in sin.  1-We are dead to it.  2-God has provided something better.    3-Sin produces crap and who wants crap?  But if we live thinking that less “sin” (whatever that looks like) makes us more like Jesus we are deceived.  Walking with Jesus makes us more like Jesus.  We won’t walk with Jesus if we think He has something against us or if we think we aren’t good enough.

We can’t move out of the state of being beloved by the Father.

“Kept”.  People lose things all the time.  If you are a professional athlete, you know that you are only secure as long as you can perform adequately.  There is always someone younger, faster, stronger, etc.  We are held in the hand of the Jesus, and we are forever secure, not because we can perform but because He loves us.

Letter from David Coffield.

Featured Writers, God Loves Us, Jehovah, Jesus, Mental Health, Messiah, Recommended Reading, Sylvia Gunter, Yahweh

God is Able

You can sign up to receive Sylvia Gunters weekly devotional at: https://thefathersbusiness.com/devotion/god-is-able/

Able is the Greek word dunatos, related to dunamis, meaning ability, abundance, capability, mighty works, miraculous power, prevailing strength. “God is able” means God has the mighty power to do a miraculous work out of His abundance and strength. Romans 16:25 says God is able to establish you. Listen to the richness of the verse when read with its full definition “God has mighty power to do a miraculous work out of His abundance and strength to establish you.”

Bring your inability to the ability of God. As you read these verses drink in the bigness of God as you replace “able” with “has the mighty power to do a miraculous work out of His abundance and strength.”

God is …
Able to give much more. 2 Chron 25:9
Able to deliver from fire. Dan 3:17
Able to raise up children of Abraham from stones. Mat 3:9
Able to give sight to the blind. Mat 9:28-29
Able to destroy in hell. Mat 10:28, James 4:12
Able to perform what He promised. Rom 4:21
Able to graft in the Gentiles. Rom 11:23
Able to make you stand. Rom 14:4
Able to establish you. Rom 16:25
Able to make a way through temptation. 1 Cor 10:13
Able to make all grace abound to you. 2 Cor 9:8
Able to do exceedingly beyond all your asking. Eph 3:20
Able to subdue everything under His control. Phil 3:21
Able to keep all we have committed to Him. 2 Tim 1:12
Able to help the tempted. Heb 2:18
Able to save from death. Heb 5:7
Able to save completely, to the utmost. Heb 7:25
Able to raise men from the dead. Heb 11:19
Able to keep you from falling and to present you before His presence without fault and with great joy. Jude 24

To the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power, and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. Jude 25

Be blessed in the name of God who is able.


© Sylvia Gunter, 2016, Prayer Essentials For Living In His Presence Volume 1,

David Coffield, Featured Writers, God Loves Us, Guest Post, Jehovah, Jesus, Messiah, Testimonies, Yahweh, Yehovah

How God feels about us is unshakeable.

Dear Mike,

How God feels about us is unshakeable.  It is never dependent on how good we are or how poorly we behave.  

God looks at His children, clothed in the righteousness of His Son, and He is forever delighted.  Not a delight that I have ever deserved or earned or ever could deserve or earn.  Those who think they can merit God’s pleasure have no idea of His holiness nor their sin.

It leaves us in a wonderful place of being able to rejoice in our Father’s love and pleasure without worrying about our performance.

Does God engage with us to help us grow up?  Yes.  Does sin produce death?  Certainly.  Is all of our sin paid for on Calvary?  Yes.  I can never sin my way out of my relationship with Father.  I can affect the way that He deals with me.  He is always about growing us up into the image of His Son Jesus.

Hebrews speaks of “fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and perfector of faith”, Paul speaks of “not being drawn away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus.”  

Despite my brokenness, despite my failures, despite my weakness, foolishness, stupidity—I am deeply loved by my Father.  It leaves me in the posture of rejoicing in God’s love for me, settled and confident in who I am to my Father (regardless of what others or my performance is saying), and free to move forward in love.

Your brother,

David

David Coffield, Featured Writers, God Loves Us, Guest Post, Jesus, Testimonies, Yahweh

What is the will of God for you?

Rejoice always, talk with God continually, and thank him for everything.

This is a letter from Dave Coffield, shared with you with his permission.

“Several of us are studying our way through 1 Thessalonians, and I am struck by 5:16,17,18.  ‘Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.‘ One of the guys in the study, Russ, suggested that all 3 verses represent God’s will for us.  I had never considered that before, and I am grateful for his input.

‘Rejoice always.’  It doesn’t say to be happy always.  Rejoice is a choice I make with my will to lift my heart to God in gratefulness regardless of the circumstances.  It is our ability to rejoice in hard and unpleasant circumstances that bear testimony to a watching world to the reality of God and our faith.  It is a compass heading.  I don’t always do a good job of it.

‘Pray without ceasing.’  We can pray without ceasing because our God is always present with us.  We are always in communication; the line is always open.  

Our sin doesn’t separate us from God.  In the early days I believed and taught that.  However, all of our sins have been forgiven on Calvary, past, present, and future.  All of them.  We don’t have to connect with God or regard Him, but He lives inside of us.  We carry Him around with us and Psalm 139 says He has intimate knowledge of us.  Every word, every thought, every deed.

So, the Lord and I talk all day long.  He is a constant companion, an ardent listener and deeply loving of us.  Incredible.  There is nothing that we can’t share with Him, nothing that He doesn’t know, and nothing that He doesn’t care about.  Incredible.  How lonely must be the life of an unbeliever!

‘In everything give thanks.’  We don’t have to feel thankful.  We don’t have to see the event as ‘good.’  We can give thanks because our Father is absolutely sovereign over this world and its smallest events.  So, what we see as an accident, an intrusion, a mistake, is all from the hand of our sovereign Father to accomplish His purposes.  We can give thanks because our Father loves us with a matchless, wonderful, profound love.

So, this is God’s will for us.  May our lives move in this direction.”

God Loves Us, Health, Jehovah, Jesus, Mental Health, Messiah, Testimonies, Uncategorized, Yahweh, Yehovah

Jesus Your Portion

Transcript of a recent conversation.

M sent Psalm 73:26 to D;

My flesh and my heart fail, But God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever.”

D replies;

What does it mean when it says my portion forever?”

To which M replies;

“Imagine sitting down for a meal, a feast, and the chef placing your meal/portion in front of you and you know that you know this is the best food for your body, the perfect amount of food for your current needs and the best tasting meal ever. It is your portion.”

“Jesus is your portion. He is the best for you and your needs, the perfect amount of Grace, and he is the best tasting relationship you will ever experience.”

“Jesus is our portion. Perfect in every way for each of us,” forever.

Charles J. Rolls, God Loves Us, J3 Khai Ambassadors, J3 Khai Restoration, J3Khai Ambassadors, Jehovah, Jesus, Messiah, Yahweh, Yehovah

The Counselor

“Who has encompassed the Spirit of Yahweh, Or as His counselor has informed Him? With whom did He take counsel and who gave Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge and made Him know the way of understanding? (Isaiah 40:13–14).”

  Whenever the word “counselor” is used in Scripture the fact of creation stands in close proximity (see Isaiah 40:26; also, Romans 11:34, 36). Whatever the Counselor determines is done and none can revoke His decision or rescind His decree. 

Make the following your prayer to Jesus the Counselor

  All the divine ordinances pertaining to the sun, stars, seas, and seasons are controlled and coordinated by the counsel of your omnipotence Counselor Jesus. You are both Generator and governor of all the great features and forces of the entire universe. You are the Counselor who asked the Patriarch Job if he were competent enough to bind the sweet influences of Pleiades or to lose the bands of Orion (Job 38:31). According to astronomical estimates Pleiades is three thousand billion miles away from the sun and yet this constellation controls the whole of our solar system. Whose counsel, other than yours Jesus, is authoritative enough to ordain ordinances that will operate such majestic constellation over the range of these gigantic distances with meticulous precision?

  As this same Counselor Jesus, you communicated to the prophets a clear, concise account of future events, which you call prophecy. You commissioned Isaiah to issue a challenge to human counselors to forecast the future or to foreordain things to come. Isaiah returned with the report that he failed to find a single one who could do it (Isaiah 41:22, 23, 28). In contrast with this impotence stands your divine omnipotence, “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done. Saying, ‘My counsel will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’, Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of My counsel from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have formed it, surely, I will do it.” (Isaiah 46:10, 11). Jesus you are the only Counselor who has communicated to man a complete record of the ages from the commencement to the consummation.

  You also asked Isaiah to announce the names of collaborators, if there were any, with whom you took counsel in order to ask for advice and aid in your administration; but Isaiah could not submit one solitary name (Isaiah 40:13, 14). Since I am incapable of coining or changing a single decree in your divine purpose, or of constructing or correcting one solitary sentence of your revealed will; since I am incompetent to create and control either planet or comet or determine its orbit, why don’t I acknowledge and adore you Messiah Jesus as the wonderful Counselor, and wholly yield my life to your will, which you prove to be good, acceptable and perfect? (Compare Romans 11:33–36 with Romans 12:1, 2).

    No one else possesses a greater and fuller claim or better title than you Jesus to counsel me. You are altogether entitled to do so because you are the all-wise Creator and also because you submitted to a cruel cross in order to redeem and reconcile. Jesus you are abundantly entitled to counsel me because you are the only One who conquered death and the Devil and defeated the powers of darkness. You are admirably entitled to counsel me because as Heir of all things you alone bear the qualifications to confer heirship; you alone maintain my right to inherit an incorruptible estate by continually making intercession for me. Jesus, you are assuredly entitled to counsel me because of your care under all conditions; you have secured the cancellation of my sins and comfort me in times of sorrow. “With Your counsel You will lead me, And afterward take me in glory.” (Psalm 73:24)

We edited Charles “The Counselor” to be a personal prayer. Charles J. Rolls, The Indescribable Christ: Names and Titles of Jesus Christ: A-G (Loizeaux Brothers, 1984).

Charles J. Rolls, God Loves Us, J3 Khai Ambassadors, J3 Khai Restoration, Jehovah, Jesus, Messiah, Yahweh, Yehovah

The Chiefest Among Ten Thousand

My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand (Song of Solomon 5:10).

When King David, in an hour of national emergency, determined to lead his army in battle against Absalom and his rebels, his own loyal followers vigorously protested, saying, “Thou shalt not go forth … thou art worth ten thousand of us” (2 Samuel 18:3). If it were possible for us to muster a group of ten thousand worthies, including the greatest leaders, potentates, celebrities, principalities, governors, dignitaries, supervisors, legislators, presidents, emperors, kings, princes, lords, and rulers, we should find that the one of chiefest dignity, noblest rank and fairest countenance of all would be our blessed Lord and beloved Savior, Messiah JesusJesus Christ (Ephesians 1:21).

No mortal can with Him compare,

Among the sons of men,

Fairer is He than all the fair

That fill the heavenly train.

Messiah JesusChrist is more winsome than any language can possibly convey. The tongues of men and of angels falter when attempting to describe the transporting sight of a transfigured Savior, such as overwhelmed the three disciples on the mount. We need to be stirred to a state of rapture, fired with a burning heart to a degree of holy ecstasy, so that our souls can mount up with wings as eagles to behold in the highest and holiest the Chiefest among Ten Thousand. Lord, reveal Thyself that we may behold Thy beauty in the sanctuary with its dignity and glory, until our enraptured hearts burst forth into songs of adoring gratitude, and we bless Thy holy Name in ceaseless praise.

Messiah JesusChrist is chiefest in the comeliness of His personality, in the winsomeness of His character, in the sweetness of His disposition and in the loveliness of His divine nature. No one is more acceptable in graciousness of manner, or more affable in affectionate kindness than this blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Our Superior is also chiefest in praise, power and perfection; for His is the purest of the holy, the strongest of the mighty and the brightest of the resplendent. He is chiefest as Creator of adoring angels, as Possessor of amazing world, as Maker of astounding stars and as Designer of abiding glories.

What then shall we render to the Lord for His benefits and blessings? Shall we bring an offering of metal or money, fruits or fabrics, gems or gifts? Why, all such things are perishables. What does He regard most from His redeemed ones? The heart’s love and loyalty, the mind’s admiration and worship and the will’s submission with self-abnegating service. These attitudes and activities are of more value to Him than all the mass of material things we may bring.

The more we contemplate Him the loftier and lovelier He becomes, until His personal attributes expand into a whole world of worthiness, a paradise of perfections, a constellation of comeliness and a galaxy of glory. Amazing thought, that He should condescend to bear our sin, our shame and our dishonor (Psalm 69:19).1

1  Charles J. Rolls, The Indescribable Christ: Names and Titles of Jesus Christ: A-G (Loizeaux Brothers, 1984).

Make this your personal prayer:

If it were possible to muster a group of ten thousand worthies, including the greatest leaders, potentates, celebrities, principalities, governors, dignitaries, supervisors, legislators, presidents, emperors, kings, princes, lords, and rulers, I would find that the one of chiefest dignity, noblest rank, and fairest countenance of all would be you Jesus, my blessed Lord, beloved Savior, and Messiah. (Ephesians 1:21).

No mortal can with you compare,

Among the sons of men,

Fairer are you than all the fair

That fill the heavenly train.

Messiah Jesus you are more cheerful and lighthearted than any language can possibly convey. The tongues of men and of angel’s falter when attempting to describe the transporting sight of you as my transfigured Savior, such as overwhelmed the three disciples on the mount. Help me be stirred to a state of rapture, fired with a burning heart to a degree of holy ecstasy, so that my soul can mount up with wings as eagles to behold in the highest and holiest the Chiefest among Ten Thousand. Lord, reveal yourself that I may behold your beauty in the sanctuary with its dignity and glory, until my enraptured heart bursts forth into songs of adoring gratitude, and bless your holy Name in ceaseless praise.

Messiah Jesus you are chiefest in graciousness of personality, in cheerful childlike character, in sweetness of disposition and in loveliness of divine nature. No one is more acceptable in graciousness of manner, or more affable in affectionate kindness than you the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords. As my Superior you are also chiefest in praise, power, and perfection; for you are the purest of the holy, the strongest of the mighty and the brightest of the resplendent. Jesus you are chiefest as Creator of adoring angels, as Possessor of amazing world, as Maker of astounding stars and as Designer of abiding glories.

What then shall I render to you for your benefits and blessings? Shall I bring an offering of metal or money, fruits or fabrics, gems or gifts? Why, all such things are perishables. What do you regard most from me a redeemed one? My heart’s love and loyalty, my mind’s admiration and worship and my will’s submission with self-sacrificing service. These attitudes and activities are of more value to you than all the mass of material things I may bring.The more I contemplate you Jesus the loftier and lovelier you become, until your personal attributes expand into a whole world of worthiness, a paradise of perfections, a constellation of comeliness and a galaxy of glory. It amazes me that you should condescend to bear my sin, my shame, and my dishonor (Psalm 69:19).