Colossians 1:26-29 (Message)
This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That’s what I’m working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me.
“To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less.” Common sense is sound basic judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training or the like. Most people are born with common sense that takes the five senses that we are given to make a determination according to what we encounter in life. We use common sense to carry us through life and hope it is enough to make sound judgment. It seems as though some are born with more sense than others. Each individual personality is different. I have five very different children seem to have varying levels of this commodity. While some came into this world with very discerning spirits who do not need to test each new experience with all five senses but choose to acquire wisdom and good judgment from others, I must admit that I do have a child or two who chooses to learn most lessons the hard way. It does not hurt until they feel it. It is not dangerous until they experience fear. It is not real until they see it. As if there is some mystery of life withheld from them to discover, these are the ones who will experience life to the fullest yet problem experience the biggest pitfalls as well. God wanted everyone to know the secret to entering His Kingdom. Jesus Christ made such knowledge accessible to all. The Holy Spirit now lives in every person who calls on the Lord to be saved to lead us to His Glory. It is really that simple. However, common sense often overcomes holy discernment and we try to ascribe man’s personality to a Sovereign God, Willing Savior, and Perfect Spirit. It just won’t work. We must allow the Lord to give us good common sense to experience all of His Goodness and Grace to elevate our thinking beyond reasonable doubt to confident hope that God is good all the time. Good common sense is found when our life is broken down to the basics. Jesus Christ! Nothing more or less, it is the greatest mystery the world has ever known so simplistic in nature most people will never really know Him.
Job 12:7-12 (Message)
“But ask the animals what they think—let them teach you; let the birds tell you what’s going on. Put your ear to the earth—learn the basics. Listen—the fish in the ocean will tell you their stories. Isn’t it clear that they all know and agree that GOD is sovereign, that he holds all things in his hand—Every living soul, yes, every breathing creature? Isn’t this all just common sense, as common as the sense of taste? Do you think the elderly have a corner on wisdom that you have to grow old before you understand life?”
Years do not make you wise and gray hair should represent such understanding but it does not. It all depends on one’s experiences in life. There are many elderly folks who are depressed and downtrodden filled with regret and fear of the unknown they face in the latter years of life. There are many grandmothers and grandfathers who have lost their faith in the changing world as they live in poverty despite their best effort to prepare for the future. Robbed by a struggling economy, years of hard work and labor with very little to show for their effort and nothing to leave the next generation. Our generation has the power to change all of this and get back to the basics. Jesus Christ! Common sense should tell us that that God is sovereign. His Kingdom is unshakeable. He has power and dominion over the earth. Animals live according to such knowledge yet it seems too lofty for “intelligent” life to obtain. Believing we hold the power to change, frivolously and fruitlessly struggling to survive when all along everything we need is provided and there is a Father in Heaven waiting graciously to prosper our life from our soul to our everyday existence. But we have rebelled against His Plan walking away as an obstinate child bent on having it our way then crying out to God, “Where are you?” Common sense will one day bring us back to the Lord but will it be in time. See Jesus is coming back and then it will be too late to move beyond reasonable doubt into confident hope when we meet Him face-to-face. Have you had enough falling down? Are you over the consequences of mistakes? It is time to gain good common sense while it can still be found and change the direction of your life for good!
Job 12:13-16 (Message)
“True wisdom and real power belong to God; from him we learn how to live, and also what to live for. If he tears something down, it’s down for good; if he locks people up, they’re locked up for good. If he holds back the rain, there’s a drought; if he lets it loose, there’s a flood. Strength and success belong to God; both deceived and deceiver must answer to him.”
If strength and success belong to God, it is the only place to find these two things people strive for in life. We are created with an inner drive to make better lives for ourselves that require these two attributes, but the enemy of our soul begins at an early age to provide immediate gratification through substitutes. True wisdom and real power belong to God, yet government has shut the door on such things. Barring the “Ten Commandments” from our courthouses which now seem to be lacking in good judgment and shutting the schoolhouse doors on prayer allowing the power of darkness to enter in and literally destroy our children. Yet people still cry out as if God has left us, never admitting we are the people who left God. Now religion has replaced relationship and our service to God is nothing more than a part of our social life in order to acquire the grace we need to get by in filthy lives with sin-filled hearts. True wisdom and real power belong to God become readily available to those who choose how to learn how to live and what to live for from the Father. He will give us discernment to understand the signs of the times and how to prosper in the midst of such trials and tribulations. But remember God is the owner of Wisdom and has good common sense, He is not going to open His Kingdom to rebellious traitors and He withholds His Power from those who would abuse it ignorantly. If you want true wisdom and real power that belong to God, it is inherited as a Child of God!
James 3:17-18 (Message)
Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.
Accessing God’s Strength, Success, True Wisdom and Real Power begins with a holy life. Such an existence is gentle, reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings. Two-faced Christians cannot access God’s Kingdom and all that it holds because their hearts remain rebellious. The Highway to Holiness is the only accessible route to all that God has planned to prosper your life. (Isaiah 35:8) Many have tried to find a shortcut or direct access but it is the only way. Jesus is the gateway to everything you have every dreamed of and desired. (John 14:6) He is the satisfaction that you need. It is that simple. Don’t overcomplicate it with religion. It is a heart decision to live like Jesus did. Love everyone more than yourself. His Grace is to begin again when trying your very best found it not good enough. A holy life requires concentrating our daily efforts on remaining faithful to the Kingdom of our calling and less concerned about the worries and cares of this life. God is your provider. He will supply everything you need according to His Riches in Glory. This means tangible and intangible. If you live the way God has instructed, you will have all that you need and so much more. It is a provision in God’s Covenant with mankind through Jesus Christ. God is bound by His Word.
Hebrews 6:13-18 (Message)
When God made his promise to Abraham, he backed it to the hilt, putting his own reputation on the line. He said, “I promise that I’ll bless you with everything I have—bless and bless and bless!” Abraham stuck it out and got everything that had been promised to him. When people make promises, they guarantee them by appeal to some authority above them so that if there is any question that they’ll make good on the promise, the authority will back them up. When God wanted to guarantee his promises, he gave his word, a rock-solid guarantee—God can’t break his word. And because his word cannot change, the promise is likewise unchangeable.
Confident hope is essential to good common sense that binds us to God and His Word. The problem we live in a “too-good-to-be-true” world with false advertising. Our judgment is now flawed by disappointment and deception that has made us unable to trust anyone or anything especially without any hard evidence. So now we have this “invisible” faith that we are called to walk in as we walk by faith and not by sight which is totally against human nature. Reasonable doubt rises up to collide with newfound hope in Jesus Christ. It beckons you to turn back before it’s too late. When people make promises, they are making a guarantee that they cannot necessarily keep because they have no control over the time in their life. I can promise to come visit you tomorrow but ultimately my life and time belong to God and if He calls me home tonight I cannot make it to your house as promised. Human beings inability to keep promises is not always intentional but based on the fact that there is always a higher power in their life whether acknowledged or not. BUT GOD! He can back up any promise that He makes because He knows the end from the beginning. The Lord wrote down every day of your life before you were born so if He promised He is ALWAYS faithful to deliver if you will remain faithful. (Psalm 139:16) You cannot have God’s Way your way. It is a complete contradiction. But if you simple choose to remain faithful to God and live a holy life as He has instructed – it will come to pass. Just look at Abraham. Abraham stuck it out and received everything that He was promised.
Romans 8:9-11 (Message)
But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!
When we enter a relationship with Jesus Christ, He does not withhold himself from us as people do. When you get married, there are things about your spouse that become evident that you didn’t know when you were dating. I will leave it at that. But when you marry Jesus Christ through salvation, He gives all of himself to you via the Holy Spirit that comes immediately to live on the inside of you. With the Spirit, you receive all of God’s Power and Strength including His Wisdom and Truth. It is all invested in you at once. Such a delivery just as if a new baby arrives in your household cannot go unnoticed in your life. If your commitment to Christ was real and sincere from the depths of your heart, you will get His Spirit. But that doesn’t mean that you will acknowledge this partnership or live faithfully in it. But if you welcome His Spirit in your life, and begin to allow the Lord to change you from the inside out then things are about to change dramatically as God’s Kingdom including all of His Blessing, Power and Provision begin to pour through you. This is not some ordinary magic trick. God raised Jesus from the dead therefore there is nothing in your life that is wasted, dead or gone with the creative power of God at work inside of you. You are delivered from death to life. His Spirit will become as alive as Jesus when honored, respected and received with love. By faith, God is living and breathing on the inside of you! Think about that! There is power and strength in such an acknowledgement and acceptance of God’s Spirit. When He does arrive, you will know it! If your life as a Christian believer is less than supernatural, it is time to stir up the Holy Spirit and open up the gift of life that Jesus Christ has given you!
Psalm 119:65-68 (Message)
Be good to your servant, GOD; be as good as your Word. Train me in good common sense; I’m thoroughly committed to living your way. Before I learned to answer you, I wandered all over the place, but now I’m in step with your Word. You are good, and the source of good; train me in your goodness.
Allow the Lord to train you in good common sense today. Human reasoning will fail you every time leading you into ambush by the enemy in attempt to rob you of God’s Greatest Blessings simply put forth in His Word. His Promises are true every single one of them and definitely worth waiting for. This world has nothing for you. It cannot increase your life beyond death. When you meet the Lord nothing you earned, built or saved will go with you except the souls of those touched by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God is good. He is the Source of every good thing you desire. Ask the Holy Spirit to train your heart to see God’s Goodness and prepare you to receive it. When we live in step with His Word, we will not wander. Wandering is a form of rebellion as it moves us away from His Kingdom. He will teach you to stay in step by faith even though you cannot see, hear, smell, taste or feel Him right now. As you develop confident hope that destroys reasonable doubt, you will see the goodness of God in the land of the living, you will hear His Voice speaking to you “peace be still”, you will smell the aroma of His Presence, and you will taste and see that the Lord is good! You will feel His Angels surround and protect you all the days of your life. It really is just that simple with some good common sense!
Colossians 3:15-17 (Message)
Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.
Proverbs 2:6-8 (Message)
And here’s why: GOD gives out Wisdom free, is plainspoken in Knowledge and Understanding. He’s a rich mine of Common Sense for those who live well, a personal bodyguard to the candid and sincere. He keeps his eye on all who live honestly, and pays special attention to his loyally committed ones.
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