These are three signs that someone is emotionally insecure.
Number one, they struggle with jealousy.
So, instead of feeling happy for others, they compare themselves and feel threatened by other people's success.
So, they judge other people and try to bring them down to make themselves feel better.
Number two, they take everything personally.
Somehow, even when you're not talking about them, they find a way to turn it back onto them, make themselves look like the victim, and make you seem like the bad guy.
And number three, they can't handle constructive criticism.
Even the smallest piece of advice or feedback feels like a personal attack to them because they're so insecure in their own skin that they can't handle being told that they need to improve.
This is WTTR.
Another outstanding day for an open Bible and a fresh cup of coffee.
So blessed.
So blessed, blessed to be gifted with the very words of the Creator himself.
The words of the Lord are pure words, right?
Psalm chapter 12, pure as silver, tried in a furnace purified seven times.
And through all these years, praise God, these pure words have been kept, have been preserved.
They provide us with, with a means to be saved, but not only that, they admonish, they encourage.
In Joshua 1:9, the Lord said, Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
And we know, Paul said, Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning.
Well, here is some great aforetime learning for us from the book of Joshua,
that through patience and comfort of the scriptures, we might have hope.
So, we not only learn from Israel's mailbox, we can actually find comfort as well.
The Lord told Joshua to be strong and of good courage, to be not afraid, not dismayed, dismayed, which is feeling consternation and anxiety, and so many are experiencing that today.
So, there's such a need for this powerful word of God to, to be conveyed to others.
He told ol' Josh, The Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest.
And hey, for us, it's even greater.
It's even greater, guys.
He's not just with us, he's in us.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
This word can transform us from the old man with his old mind to the new man with his new mind, the mind of Christ.
We accomplish this by taking God at his word.
It's just that simple.
Take him at his word and we decide, we make a conscience decision to start thinking of ourselves the same way that God thinks of us.
Start to value ourselves as he values us, in his Son.
So, if he says, I'm accepted in the blood, then guess what?
I mean, who am I to disagree with that?
God's word has throughly furnished us, enabling us to replace uncertainty with certainty, insecurity with security.
Discouragement with encouragement, darkness with light.
It's our nourishment to help us avoid spiritual oppression.
His word is where we find spiritual and emotional healing.
This is where our joy, our peace, our comfort is found.
Right here in this phenomenal, I started to say book, but actually in this phenomenal library of books, 66 to be exact, close to 1200 chapters and almost 800,000 words.
Hey, this, this bad boy is power packed with information that can transform you, transform me, transform us all, fuel and equip us to be awake, aware, alive, and active, so we're able to carry out the duties of an ambassador.
The word of God brings clarity, which helps with decision making.
It separates truth from lies, replaces the impractical with the practical.
His word helps us with our critical thinking.
It equips us with discernment, provides us with actionable wisdom.
This word is alive.
The word of God is living, active, and sharper than any two-edged sword.
Well, while I would love to sit here and describe all of, all of its vast benefits, that would take many many hours no doubt.
If I could even do it, probably not, to be frank, I don't think I can.
I don't know all the benefits of God's word.
My guess is the benefits are immeasurable, at least for my finite brain.
But this is what I do know: When we actively engage ourselves with God's word, his word will actively engage with us.
Paul said that he thanked God without ceasing for the fact that when the Thessalonians, when they received the word of God as he presented it,
they received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth.
And that word of God they received effectually worked in those that believed.
See, if you can get a hold of God's word of truth, the word of truth can get ahold of you.
When we study to show ourself approved, that's how it gets ahold of us.
When we study, when we become workmen, that transforms us from ashamed to not ashamed.
That's how we're strengthened, guys, strengthened by his Spirit in the inner man.
We renew and reeducate our thinking.
Paul laid the foundation so that we can come along and lay on the right foundation.
The foundation, of course, being Jesus Christ, but not Jesus Christ after the circumcision, that's the wrong foundation to build on.
Our building project is to build on the foundation of Jesus Christ as he presented himself to the Apostle Paul.
Peter preached Jesus after the flesh, which lines up with Israel's prophetic program that had gone on since the world began.
Acts chapter 3 verse 21, but Paul, hey, he presents Jesus Christ
according to the revelation of the mystery, Romans 16:25, which had been kept secret since the world began.
This couldn't be any more different.
This is why you rightly divide the word of truth.
You rightly divide prophecy from mystery.
Israel's law program to the many nations grace program.
Israel, his chosen nation, the body of Christ, his chosen church, compiled of all nations, believers from every nation around the world.
Ephesians 1:3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.
So, even though the church which is his body was a secret, it was chosen to be a secret before the foundation of the world.
And right here is where the Calvinists run the train plumb off the tracks, watch.
Let's continue to read, That we should be holy and without blame before him in love, verse 5, having predestined, having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.
But what the poor Calvinists miss is that the church was chosen, not the individuals in the church.
Individuals in the church are the whosoevers.
1 Timothy 2:4, it's God's will that his chosen be saved?
Is that how that reads?
No, that's how the Calvinists read it, but that's not what it says.
God's will is that all men be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth, 1 Timothy 2:4.
They don't believe their Bible.
If the Calvinists had a peg-leg to stand on, Paul could not have made such a statement.
Nor this one, next chapter, verse 5, For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for
John MacArthur, Paul Washer, John Piper, R.C. Sproul?
No.
Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all.
Not just a few select favorites.
There goes the whole Calvinist apple cart turned over right there on the street, apples bouncing around everywhere, what a mess.
They misused the word chosen and predestined.
And on top of that, they totally mess up one of the key essential verses,
Ephesians 2:8.
A verse so simple, I mean, you really gotta go out of your way to mess this one up, For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
They take this and twist it like a pretzel, making faith the gift.
No, faith's not the gift.
Faith is not the gift in the verse, salvation by grace is.
Salvation is by grace through faith, but faith is not the gift.
Just let grammar be your friend.
They got God showing up passing out the gift of faith like Oprah passes out cars.
You get faith, you get faith, you get faith.
No, not you, but hey, you back there, yeah, you get it.
What a cruel, devilish doctrine to teach that God preselected a chosen few to give faith to.
Only a narcissist would think such a thing.
Ephesians 2:8, let's take a look at the grammatical structure here and break it down, For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
The, "by grace are you saved?"
That's the gift.
The, "through faith," that's how the gift is received.
This is clear.
There's no vaguery here.
The vagueness is in the mind.
In the mind of those who want to make faith a gift.
See, the key here is grammar.
It's grammar.
Grammar is not to be haphazardly thrown around, God is the author of grammar and grammar has principles.
Principles to be followed.
Principles and parameters that if ignored will cause havoc.
That's like the Jesus is his own father, oneness crowd.
Some of them have infiltrated themselves into grace circles.
They don't pay attention to grammar.
Think about it, God's word, his word, that means it has words in this book.
Words they do not pay attention to.
God through his perfect grammar in this perfect library of 66 books included personal pronouns.
He assigned personal pronouns for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The very word person is in the word personal.
This is what happens when you just pretend to be a Bible believer.
You believe some, but not all.
Not the parts that don't line up with what you already believe, that don't line up with your group.
Because you're group thinkers, group thinkers with the herd mentality.
But when you come to the Bible, when you come to God's word as an independent thinker, you're primed and ready to receive his unadulterated,
unperverted truth.
So, they don't think God can be a person.
Now, and don't get this twisted, God is not three people, three human beings.
No, God is three divine persons, just as the Bible says in 1 John 5:7.
Three divine persons is not equivalent to three human people.
If John says our one God is three in one, then guess what?
He's three in one.
He's three in one, doesn't matter how you feel about it.
Just stick with the word and let God be true and every man a liar.
Think about it.
One of the very things that make him who he is, that sets him apart from all other gods, all the little g's, is the very thing the oneness Godhead gang is attacking.
Unlike all the others, the one true and living God is three divine persons in one.
That's awesome, an awesome trait that sets him apart.
Listen, all scripture's given by inspiration of God and God wouldn't dare use personal pronouns when describing the Father, the Son, and the Spirit
if they were not three divine persons, no way.
Not three gods, only one God, but our one God includes three divine persons.
This sets our God apart and makes him unique from all other imposters.
This is something we should be celebrating.
Okay, back to Ephesians 2:8.
Now, there's a law here that we cannot overlook.
The law of grammatical agreement, grammatical agreement.
And we see two key words here, two key words that we must not miss.
The word, "that," and the word, "it."
These two words are neutral.
Neuter pronouns, I think they're called.
Anyway, they have no gender.
According to how the Holy Spirit inspired this verse to be written, the grammatical structure, the "that" and the "it" here are referring to the salvation we see in the previous clause.
See, the New Testament was written in Greek.
So, the gift cannot be referring to faith, because in the Greek, faith is gender feminine, a feminine noun.
See the problem?
Faith is feminine, but "that" and "it" are neuter.
Therefore, the only thing we can assign the gift to is salvation.
The gift is not faith.
Salvation is the gift, but faith is something you have to exercise after you hear the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
Bible believers know that our having faith isn't a gift, but something that comes by hearing.
There's nothing vague about Romans 10:17, So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
Faith comes by the way of a gift?
No.
No, you need ears for faith.
You got to hear something.
Unless, of course, you're hearing impaired.
In that case, your faith would come by you actually seeing the gospel.
Sign language maybe.
Or like several we've heard from over the years who watch our videos, faith can come via closed caption.
But faith has to come by you hearing or seeing something because it's not a gift.
God did not hand pick a certain few to give this gift to.
Next verse, verse 18, But I say, have they not heard?
Yes, barely.
Their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world.
See this?
It's clear.
Anyone with a grain of discernment understands that the Ephesians 2:8 faith is not the gift.
Ephesians 1:13, what are you going to do with that one?
Some quote it, but they don't really believe it.
In whom, ye also trusted after...
After what Paul?
After God gives me the gift of faith, or after he had faith for me?
We got those who say Christ had to have faith and it's his faith that saves us.
No, it's not.
Just read and believe it, After that ye,... not Christ,... after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation in whom also after that ye believed.
Oops, there goes the universalist nonsense down the drain.
Our faith is absolutely essential for salvation and is not a free gift from God.
Our faith can only come after something occurs.
After that ye heard the word of truth, Ephesians 1:13, faith cometh by us hearing Romans 10:17.
It's at that nanosecond of exercising our faith that we get baptized into Christ and placed into the church which is his body.
The only church in your Bible that was commissioned with a ministry of reconciliation, praise God.
2 Corinthians 5:18, And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given us the ministry of reconciliation.
Now whatch you gonna do with yours?
Whatch you gonna do with your commission?
Well, you're gonna go tell everyone that it was at the cross where Christ won the victory.
But the full magnitude of this victory wasn't made manifest until later.
It remained a secret.
Hidden wisdom until being revealed to our Apostle Paul, how that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself on the cross.
He stopped imputing the world's trespasses, and now, all of us in Christ, all of us in Christ believers, we've been commissioned, we've been commissioned to go tell the world about this, about the greatest news ever.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law.
Galatians 3:13, Being made a curse for us, he took our place, he took our death, he suffered our beating, he took our punishment, what we deserved, and did it willingly, laid down his life.
He did all that so that we at this very moment could be right here, right here together.
And now, if you haven't settled your salvation by accepting it as a free gift, you can do that right now.
Today is the day of your salvation.
You can settle this thing and rest.
You can settle it right now and be at peace about where you're going to spend eternity.
If you've been trying to do something about your sins, if you've been striving for forgiveness, stop.
You need to repent.
Change your mind and realize you can't do anything to get your sins forgiven.
You don't have that power.
The doing was done at Calvary.
It was there on Calvary's cruel cross that the son appeased the Father.
And he did so on your behalf.
He died for the sins of the world.
He was buried, but conquered sin and death by rising on the third day.
And because of this, God stopped imputing your sins, 2 Corinthians 5:19.
Now, if you'll rest in that and in that alone, God will right now call you justified.
This is how you're justified and not by anything you can do.
Salvation's a free gift, but it must be accepted.
Trust in the risen Christ.
The Father stopped imputing your sins because the Son died for them all.
He was buried, but he rose the third day to give you new life, life eternal.
To all who would believe on him.
Make today the day of your salvation.
And to all my fellow ambassadors, remember, not everyone wakes up at the same time.
So it's our job to just keep being the alarm clock.
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