Tag: discipleship

the radical forgiveness required for freedom

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Forgiveness Eph.1:6-7

6To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 

 7In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

859 ἄφεσις [aphesis /af·es·is/] n f. From 863; TDNT 1:509; TDNTA 88; GK 912; 17 occurrences; AV translates as “remission” nine times, “forgiveness” six times, “deliverance” once, and “liberty” once. 1 release from bondage or imprisonment. 2 forgiveness or pardon, of sins (letting them go as if they had never been committed), remission of the penalty.

[1]

n n: noun or neuter

f f: feminine

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

TDNTA Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume

GK Goodrick-Kohlenberger

AV Authorized Version

[1]Strong, James: The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible : Showing Every Word of the Text of the Common English Version of the Canonical Books, and Every Occurrence of Each Word in Regular Order. electronic ed. Ontario : Woodside Bible Fellowship., 1996, S. G859

Romans 4:25   Jesus was delivered over to death for our offenses, not just for the offenses of others against us, but for all and about all-

“Who was betrayed and put to death because of our misdeeds and was raised to secure our justification (our acquittal), [making our account balance and absolving us from all guilt before God].”

Ephesians 4:32  And become useful and helpful and kind to one another, tenderhearted (compassionate, understanding, loving-hearted), forgiving one another [readily and freely], as God in Christ forgave you.

When you forgive, you release into God’s hands the person who has offended you. You drop the offense, let it go, and give up your right to hurt the person who hurt you. Then you become a candidate for the supernatural, the peace of God that passes all understanding guards your mind, and God Himself, in His own time and in His own way, vindicates you.

SPEAK ALOUD UNTIL YOU SENSE IN YOUR SPIRIT THAT YOU ARE FREE AND CLEAR: I ACQUIT, FORGIVE, AND RELEASE [THE PERSON] TO THE LORD. [From Luke 6:37 (AMPC) 37 Judge not [neither pronouncing judgment nor subjecting to censure], and you will not be judged; do not condemn and pronounce guilty, and you will not be condemned andpronounced guilty; acquit and forgive and [a]release (give up resentment, let it drop), and you will be acquitted and forgiven and [b]released.]

TRAIN YOURSELF TO OPERATE IN INSTANT, RADICAL FORGIVENESS BEFORE YOU REACT IN UNFORGIVENESS.

See the ministry: www.akwellspring.com and the book Biblical Foundations of Freedom by Dr. Art Mathias. Keys to reaching deep levels of forgiveness and repentance and full freedom from bitterness.

See The Bait of Satan by John Bevere.

See Deep Relief Now by Dennis and Jen Clark and videos on YouTube on Forgiveness by Dennis Clark. See their keen ministry: forgive123.com.

By Katherine Bell; bondslavefreedom.com

If this blog blessed you, and you’d like to support my writing labors, please consider donating via PayPal or Venmo (@Katherine-Bell-micro.)

Zelle katherinefbell@me.com

Blessings in return—

Jesus is an Intimacy Junkie

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Jesus is an intimacy junkie. That is my latest discovery. [Written 2-6-2009.] I have been studying a lot on love lately: Pastor Eric Vernelson’s Song of Songs series, The Shulammite by Michael Walsh, Unquenchable Fire by Teresa Eklund, Basilea Schlink’s “Bridal Love” and “Jesus Christ: The True Bridegroom” and currently Love – the Law of the Angels by Gwen Shaw. Then there is the very deep one: The Song of Songs A Mystical Exposition by Father Juan Arintero. I am finding a Savior who doesn’t just tell us to “pour out our longings” for our sake. No, Jesus craves the deep sharing of the human heart. He so wants us to come to Him with all that is in us: our desires, our dreams, what we do understand or don’t, what pains us, our struggles, the intricacies of our relationships, our successes, our failures, our victorious abiding, our sin. He delights, even burns, to know us at the most transparent level. When you begin to see this, you will run to Him as no human relationship compares with the intimate union that is available in Christ. It is so worth investing the hours alone with Jesus to know and be known by Him. As we give Him more of ourselves (the communication of our hearts), He reveals more of Himself (His heart). Truly, this is what fires passion. Truly, this is where the treasure is.

Psalms 142:2 (TPT)

I spill out my heart to you and tell you all my troubles.

Psalms 34:17 (TPT)

Yet when holy lovers of God cry out to him with all their hearts, the Lord will hear them and come to rescue them from all their troubles.

Psalms 62:8 (TPT)

Trust only in God every moment! Tell him all your troubles and pour out your heart-longings to him. Believe me when I tell you—he will help you! Pause in his presence

Psalms 62:2 (TPT)

He alone is my safe place; his wraparound presence always protects me. For he is my champion defender; there’s no risk of failure with God. So why would I let worry paralyze me, even when troubles multiply around me?

Psalms 9:9 (TPT)

All who are oppressed may come to Yahweh as a high shelter in the time of trouble, a perfect hiding place.

INTIMACY or “into me You see” is a key part of the way out! Thus, and as we obey Him: “into Thee we see” in turn. The gaining of Christ is the Prize of prizes.

Amplified Bible Heb. 4:15-16

15 For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize and understand our weaknesses and temptations, but One who has been tempted [knowing exactly how it feels to be human] in every respect as we are, yet without [committing any] sin. 16 Therefore let us [with privilege] approach the throne of grace [that is, the throne of God’s gracious favor] with confidence and without fear, so that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find [His amazing] grace to help in time of need [an appropriate blessing, coming just at the right moment].

Created for Love

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God, the Creator of all the Universe, is the All-Wise, All-Knowing Father. He is love, the Bible tells us in 1 John 4:8: “for God is love. [He is the originator (or source) of love, and it is (the) enduring attribute of His nature.]” God designed us with a deep hunger for the perfect love that flows from Him. He designed us to relate to Him and to feed on or be dependent on Him as our source of love. No human relationship, not marriage or close friendship or the parent-child bond, can fill the heart of man at its core as God’s agape love can. Humans need intimate fellowship with their Maker. 

What is God’s love like? It is totally giving and unselfish, unlike the largely self-seeking hearts of people. A pastor in Fort Mill, Dennis Clark, uses the term “God emotions” to describe the fruit or issue of the life that comes from the Holy Spirit. [My definitions of the fruit below bear the Clarks’ influence.] God’s desire for us is that we be filled with Himself through the new birth explained in John Chapter 3. [God is three-in-one: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.] 

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Excerpt from my ebook, “Love School”

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How do we practice love? And how do we tap the Christ within so that we are able to love the difficult and irksome ones? The call is even to extend love to those who have abused us—our enemies. First we must function in a higher framework. Hannah Whitall Smith in her classic The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life said, “The human beings around us are often the bottles that hold our medicine prescribed and given to us by the Great Physician of our souls to heal our spiritual diseases.”75 Graham Cooke in his book, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy, also points us to this higher plane: “It’s not easy to love everyone, but it is the call on every prophet’s life. To test us in this, God deliberately puts people around us who are meant to be loved by us. Often we will have to be very creative to love them; some of them, by design, are not easy to love. But those unlovable ones, ironically, teach us the most about God’s heart. I call people like these grace growers. They cultivate the grace in my life by forcing me to be intentional about loving them.”76 Cooke continues, “God puts these people in our lives to teach us about being Christlike….We all have difficult people around us, but they are going to teach us experientially how to discover and explore the love of God. It will kill us to love some of them; such struggle cracks open our heart to the Holy Spirit. God wants us to look at His children with the same love He feels. The harder they are to love, the more God will pour Himself out on us to accomplish that action. What a mystery this is! The very people we find the hardest to get along with can bring us the closest to Christ.”77 We must know God’s ways and perceive His hand in relational struggles. We must understand that God orchestrates things such that we must enter into His death on the cross—the cross our self nature is placed on in union with Christ—and so bear about in the body death to our natural reactions. At the point of death to self, the Holy Spirit releases Christ’s resurrection life. We experience His supernatural grace in order to love. Death works life is the Scriptural principle. (See Galatians 2:20.)

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Caring for Christ

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Now came an argument among them as to which of them would be greatest in the coming Kingdom! But Jesus knew their thoughts, so he stood a little child beside him and said to them, “Anyone who takes care of a little child like this is caring for me! And whoever cares for me is caring for God who sent me.

Your care for others is the measure of your greatness.

(Luke 9:46-48 TLB)

Put your heart and soul into every activity you do, as though you are doing it for the Lord Himself and not merely for others. For we know that we will receive a reward, an inheritance from the Lord, 

as we serve the Lord YAHWEH, the Anointed One! (Col. 3:23-24 TPT)

There’s a lot in it for us as we say yes to operating in selfless love or the true care of souls. We are fulfilled or blessed as we give. And we are restored to the image of God, the very design of how we are to function, as we heed Paul’s obedience to Jesus in Acts 20:35, “I’ve left you an example of how you should serve and take care of those who are weak. For we must always cherish the words of our Lord Jesus, who taught, ‘Giving gives a far greater blessing than receiving.’” (TPT) And Jesus also said, “For if you give, you will get! Your gift will return to you in full and overflowing measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, and running over. Whatever measure you use to give—large or small—will be used to measure what is given back to you.” (Luke 6:38 TLB) Our hearts are healed. We are supplied well. Not to mention eternal rewards!

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The Vantage Point of God: the Key to Operating from the Heart of God

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“God looks at us differently than when we look at us. His love isn’t just what saves us; it’s how God sees us. We see what we are and what we’ve done. He sees what He intended and what we can become if we’ll surrender to Him.” 

—Zack Hensley from his sermon notes, “Rediscovering Abiding Love,” (forerunnerchurch.com)

So I give you a new commandment: Love each other just as much as I have loved you. For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you are My true followers. (John 13:34-35 TPT)

It’s noteworthy that Brian Simmons in his Passion Translation uses the phrase “my old identity” when writing of what was co-crucified on the cross with Jesus such that we can live as new moral creatures in Christ. The verse reads, “My old identity has been crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives his life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God who loves me so much that he gave himself for me, dispensing His life into mine!” (Galatians 2:20 TPT) Right identity or thinking of ourselves and others in terms of God’s whole new creation reality is key to flowing in an unrestricted way from the loving heart of God. Holding to God’s vantage point is vital to experiencing the freedom to love with agape or charity as the King James words it. 

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The Throne of Grace

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1 Corinthians 1:3 (TPT) May joyous grace(c) and endless peace be yours continually 

from our Father God and from our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One!

c 1:3 The Greek word charis, in its original sense, is descriptive of that which brings pleasure and joy to the human heart, implying a strong emotional element. God’s grace includes favor and supernatural potency, and it is meant to leave us both charming and beautiful. In classical Greek it was meant to convey the attitude of favor shown by royalty. See Torrance, The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers, pp. 1-5.

2 Peter 3:18 (TPT) But continue to grow and increase in God’s grace and intimacy with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (b) May He receive all the glory both now and until the day eternity begins. Amen!

b 3:18 The Aramaic does not use the imperative but makes it more of a decree: “You continue to be nourished in grace and in the intimate knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Messiah, and of God the Father.” Spiritual growth is yielding to the grace of God and having passion to know Jesus Christ intimately. In time, we grow into His beautiful image.

What great wisdom it is to understand that our Creator desires to supply us with everything we need to function such that we love Him and we love others with His selfless love thus fulfilling all the Law and the Prophets. What a great thing to understand that His will is a walk of union with God’s heart and mind and God is love. To reach higher levels of obeying “Not my will, but Thine, be done” is to reach deeper levels of knowing the Lord’s love. (Luke 22:42 KJV) Love equates to obedience, and obedience yields intimacy with the Lord. He becomes more real; His presence weightier. Jesus said in John 14:21, “The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I [too] will love him and will show (reveal, manifest) Myself to him. [I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.]” (AMPC) And to be close to Him like John was is the ultimate fulfillment.

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