Mountain Moving Faith?

Jesus said in Luke that the kingdom of God is within us.  God’s address is found within those who believe on the finished work of the cross….where the veil was rent in two.  No more distance between God and man.   God incarnated Himself in man redeeming us unto Himself…. undoing what Adam had done; re-presenting us back unto Him from the fallen state we found ourselves in.   Jesus went to the cross to remove every lie that we have believed about ourselves.  

That through the incarnation, every document of guilt has been shred….every principality and power employed by the do-it-yourself tree (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) had been eliminated. 

Many of us know Mark 11:23  For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

  

I once believed that the mountain was a car, a job, a home, overcoming a health issue, etc.  and that I had to pray and believe those things into my life.  But Grace (God's Divine Influence)  tells me that the mountain is the activity that goes on between my ears telling me I don’t qualify for God’s goodness.  The mountain is represented in the earth that God doesn't love all of mankind; only those who have joined the Christian club

The mountain is represented in the heart that says, “I have a sickness that will lead unto death”. The mountain is found in the heart of the parent whose child wants nothing to do with them and their God.  The mountain is represented in the lie that I cannot find a job because I am too old….too young…..too inexperienced…..over qualified….

But Grace is telling me that the faith which will move mountains is the PERSUASION that Christ has already done it all.  Jesus met all the requirements of the law needed to secure for us the victory God intended for us to walk in from the foundation of the earth.  The victory being His life, His peace, His joy and His contentment!

So when circumstances of life or the meditation of my heart begins  to conflict with the Truth, I remind myself of Who I am and of Whom I belong… and from that platform, His peace and His rest moves those mountains on my behalf.  

Sin Defined

GRACE - A MISUNDERSTOOD MESSAGE - PART 4

In the last post I talked about our understanding of "sin"; how we needed to understand sin in the context of the true Greek definition of this word:  (The word “sin” in most instances of the new testament all come from the Greek word “hamartano” which means to be separated, to miss the mark, or to be estranged or mistaken in such a way as to not have a share in the prize.) rather then Websters definition of sin ("wrong deed or thought; a wrong attitude; a wrong action or inaction).

When God created Adam, He formed him from the dust of the earth and breathed His breath into them (Gen 2:7) and brought him to life. God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness".  So from the first breath, Adam was fashioned like God.  Man was created in God's image and likeness (Gen 1:26).

After having named all the animals and Adam not finding one made "like him" (Gen 2:20), God said it was not good that man had no "aid" or "mate", the literal Hebrew says.  So God created Eve from Adam. Then God had commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for if he does, he shall surely die (Gen 2:17).

What I want to focus on is the fact that Adam and Eve were already made "like God"....in His image and likeness.....then the serpent comes along in Genesis Chapter 3 and says to Eve, "Yea, hath God said , Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden"? and Eve tells him that they aren't allowed to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or they would die.

And the crafty deceiver says, "Ye shall surely not die. For God knows that in the day ye shall eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil".

So what does this have to do with sin?  Well, as you know Eve ate of the tree and gave to Adam to eat as well.....Proverbs 16:25 There is a way that seems right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death.  You see, knowing good and evil seemed like the way to be like God.  Adam and Eve, by partaking of that fruit were basically saying that by knowing good and evil their eyes would be opened and thus be like God. They already were made to be like God but they chose to become like God by their efforts.....their doing.

God said they would die and they did.....spiritually speaking, they died. God's plan or His "mark".....His "target".....His "prize" for mankind was to live the life He created for us....that ZOE life (God's life full of His vitality and animated, brought to life in us). The Life God breathed into man's nostrils is life given by God freely.  The only way to experience His life is in gift form.  It doesn't come about by us trying to work principles. This is the point of departure, not the end goal.  By experiencing His Life, this is the point from where we begin....begin to know His Love, experience His peace, begin to see others, both the righteous and the sinner from His perspective.

So when Adam and Eve chose to have life by knowing good and evil, they sinned....they missed the mark; they became estranged from God, separated from Him causing them to no longer qualify for a share in the prize.  What prize?  The prize of experiencing the Life God had intended for mankind to walk in.

But that is not where we were left.  More on this later.  For now, let us know that God's plan was for us to "hit" the mark.....qualify for the Life He created us to experience.....all the vitality and peace that accompanies Him living in us as was the case when He breathed HIS breath into man's nostrils.

Through faith in Christ, we can experience this life.....this love....this peace....not based on us knowing good and doing good but by our acknowledging what God has made right through Christ!

Grace - A Misunderstood Message - Part Three

Once again, the purpose of these posts is to bring clarity to what I believe the "grace of God" means and how to experience more of the life God designed us to walk in.

I described how the word "grace" in Strong's Greek Concordance defines the word as gift, favor, mercy, and especially the divine influence in the heart of man and it's reflection in the life as a result of his goodness toward us.

I mentioned that when we look at Romans 3:24 (being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ) and understand grace to be a "gift" from God or mercy or favor granted us, the inference is that we became justified (made righteous) by Jesus' sacrifice and this justification became a reality in our life around  the event of us accepting Christ as our Savior; the event being that we became aware of Christ's sacrifice and "believed" on Him.

There is a truth in this belief however it leaves us with the understanding that upon our acceptance of Christ the slate of sin has been wiped clean and we are made new (2 Corinthians 5:17 "therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation"....) only to find ourselves gathering the stain of sin again with the passing of time. If we are going to be honest with ourselves we know we will sin again.  And so when we do, we have been taught that there is something we must do again in order to be cleansed of our sin and become righteous again (1John 1:9)

The prevailing thought here is that "sin" has been defined over the centuries as a "wrong deed or thought; a wrong attitude; a wrong action or inaction.  And as such we find ourselves on the merry-go-round of sin and repentance...sin and repentance.....over and over with the hope that some day we will be sinning less and bearing more fruit.

For years, we have understood the word sin to be defined as above. What has become muddy to us is the issue that Jesus paid the price for our sins once and for all, yet we still sin.....we still have wrong deeds or thoughts; wrong moral reasoning's; bad actions or lack of good actions....yet the bible says sin has been done away with.  Because of this, many have said that we can walk free from sin when we understand God's Grace.....and that we won't want to sin once we yield to this love and grace while at the same time, those who disagree with the message of "grace" say that this sort of belief lends itself to the notion that we are granting a license to sin.

Let's be real about this.....as long as we live in these flesh and blood bodies, we will always have misdeeds, wrong attitudes bad actions and so on.  We don't want to do these things but like the Apostle Paul said in Romans 7:15 "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate". ESV.

What we need to do is to reorient our understanding of the word "sin".  For too long we have understood sin as the dictionary describes it.  But keep in mind, the definitions in our dictionary change with time, keeping in line with the prevalent thinking of the day.  For instance..... in the early 1900's if you looked up the word "gay" in the dictionary, you would find the definition "happy, excited, exuberant; having high spirits".  Today, the first thing that comes to mind is "sexually attracted to someone of the same sex:.  Another example is the word "wicked".  Several years ago this word meant "morally bad; evil, disgustingly unpleasant".  But today the word can mean "going beyond reasonable limits; of exceptional quality of degree (he throws a wicked fastball".

Now, imagine what can happen to the understanding of a word over several centuries.  The word “sin” in most instances of the new testament all come from the Greek word “hamartano” which means to be separated, to miss the mark, or to be estranged or mistaken in such a way as to not have a share in the prize.

What mark are we missing?  What prize are we not sharing in? What is it that causes us to be estranged from God? There is much to be said about this, but for the sake of ending this post for now, suffice it to say that because we are unable to walk free from mistakes; misdeeds; wrong attitudes; "less than stellar" acts of love and compassion toward others produce in us the concentration on our shortcomings, thus challenging our belief that we truly have been made righteous. It obstructs our capability of recognizing that what we "do" or "do not do" has no bearing on what Christ set out to do on the cross.....to defeat the penalty of sin and restore us to the original design God created in Adam and Eve before the fall.

Next post, I will go into this discussion of sin a little deeper.  But for now, know this.....that the blood of Christ has covered all our shortcomings and we now are able partakers of the divine nature God breathed into man from the beginning of time.  It is His desire that you tune out the misdeeds of your day and open your heart to God who loves you with a love that is always contending for the highest possible good in every situation and relentlessly contending for that good until it becomes a present tense reality in your life.

May you experience the enrichment of His divine influence in your heart today.
Jim

Understanding Grace

Grace - A Misunderstood Message - Part Two

Grace - "the Divine influence upon the heart of a person and the acting out in ones life because of His merciful kindness toward us"

Much like the word "love", we can use this word for a variety of meanings. The nice thing about the Greek language is that there are multiple words characterizing the different uses for the word "love". Example:

Eros - erotic love
Stergein - a natural affection as in members of a family
Philos - More of a liking, affection or fondness - brotherly love. The city Philadelphia is known as the city of "brotherly love".
Agapao or Agape - The highest form of love - unconditional love - the kind of love that is always contending for the highest possible good in every situation and relentlessly contending until it becomes a present tense reality.

We use the word "love" very loosely in this country. " I love football, I love pizza, I love my wife and children, I LOVE THE BUCKEYES! It's no wonder we are birthing a generation that will be challenged to define love.

Just like "love" has several meanings so too does the word "grace" - this word can mean, favor, mercy, gift, as well as the definition I have given from Strong's Greek Concordance, above.. So, when it comes to the word grace, we need to have an understanding of which definition we are referring to.  Think for a moment if I told my wife I loved her and used the word Philos (brotherly love).  What kind of response would this generate in her heart?

Let's apply this now to Romans 3:24 - "Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus". So, now, when it comes to the word "grace", we could use the word "favor" and we could use the word "gift" in the translation of this verse and be correct.  I too could use the word "affection" or "fondness" when telling my wife that I love her, but if she understood that my love toward her was "agape" love, not only would this encompass the fact that I have an affection or fondness toward her but when she understands my love is "agape" our love would be much more deeper and organic (always changing; striving for the highest good as new and challenging situations arise in our lives).

So we could say that our justification through Christ Jesus is a grace (gift) from God....something He freely gave to us and given out of grace (mercy), but to me, that tends to center around more of an event. In other words, our justification is a GIFT from God, a MERCIFUL act toward us. However, when I come to the realization that my justification comes by way of His Divine Influence in my heart, this takes on a whole new perspective of how God does a work in us; how we can be born of God.

The long and short of that is this - when it comes to areas in my life where I am not walking in His best for me, whether I am missing the mark in my attitude, actions, be it through behaviors or heart attitudes, I can ask (pray) for His Divine Influence to work in my heart.  Then, instead of me using self effort to experience the fruit He desires enriching my life with, I find Him changing my heart by influencing me with His Agape love.  This results in lasting fruit.  The fruit that comes by self-effort only lasts as long as the effort is being put forth. Contrary to that, when God does a work in our heart, the fruit it produces is more real and lasting because it is fruit produced after its own kind - God fruit, if you will.

Another way of explaining it is this: As we raise our children what would produce more fruit in their life; them knowing how we feel about what is right or wrong and then having them do what we tell them or they themselves having right thinking? There is a big difference. One is them trying to act like us and the other is us being born in them.  I believe we have all seen people, whether children of others or fellow believers in church who know how to "act" right. in front of us or the pastor but their actions and attitudes in their home or workplace reveal a different kind of being. This usually means that what they are trying to appear like is born from self-effort.   However, when their heart is right, the fruit that comes forth will produce right behavior. More on this to come.

As you go about your day, take that one area of your life that you would like to see changed and begin to ask God to influence you.  Don't try to change yourself.....let Him work the change in you or your situation and watch the fruit that comes forth.

Agape,
Jim

GRACE - A MISUNDERSTOOD MESSAGE

There is a lot of talk these days about the message of grace. It seems to be the latest "craze" if you will.  Some ministers have adopted this into their message as though it is a new "focus" or revelation God has given them. Others speak strongly against it, citing that it is a new way to reach the lost with an "easy" gospel; a gospel that accepts any lifestyle as is, without need to change....also touted as a "license to sin" gospel.  I must admit, I understand both sides of this argument.

When I first discovered God's love for me, I was being taught the "message of faith". The rise of this doctrine began long before I began my walk with God but from what I have heard, it mirrors the beginnings of this doctrine of "grace".  I imagine that over the course of church history, there other such doctrinal encounters that swept the nations.  Since I am not a scholar in this regard, I won't attempt to identify any such history of the church. What I do know in my limited understanding is that there are those "for" the faith doctrine and those "against" it.....there are those for the "grace" doctrine and those "against" it.

For folks outside the pursuit of God, church, religion, faith etc., we must look rather strange with our divisions and varied doctrinal leanings. For others who are seeking to discover God for whatever the reason, this could be a point of discussion where "positioning and argument" find its breeding ground.

My heart in posting this blog is to give a little insight from my perspective on what I believe God's heart is towards mankind with the ultimate goal of revealing His undying love for us and to show us that His desire is for us to experience His life....a life of peace, joy and contentment. I'm not desiring to compare any such doctrines or to come against anyone's belief.

I will need to break this down over a series of postings in order that these are not too long for any one sitting. I don't know how many or how often these will come forth but I hope you would find life in these words and encouragement for the day. Please feel free to share these with others that may need a lift.

I will end with the beginning.....an understanding of the word "grace" to springboard from.  The word for "grace" in the New Testament is the Greek word Charis (kar-eece) meaning "the Divine Influence upon the heart of a person and the acting out in ones life because of His merciful kindness toward us.

Get to know this definition for it will be the foundation on which you will discover a fresh perspective on God's love for you!

Jim Donadio
GraceLifeMinistry@neo.rr.com
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WHAT IS FAITH?

Faith.....now here is a word that can bring about all sorts of emotions. To some, faith is a system of religious beliefs...to another it is something that is believed with strong conviction. How we interpret this word AND apply it to our life can make a huge difference in our response to a Loving God.

 The bible says "Without faith it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him" Hebrews 11:6 The Greek word in this passage is the word "pistis", meaning a persuasion.....especially a reliance upon Christ for salvation..... When I used to hear the word "faith" what I understood it to mean is that it was "my ability to appropriate God's promises, His word over circumstances that may appear contrary to a life of peace, joy, provision, and so on.

 Somehow the emphasis in my mind came back to the subconscious belief that it was based in "my ability". And so, my role was to memorize enough scriptures and strive to carry myself in a manner worthy of Christianity. This would include but is not limited to being kind to all, love my enemies, don't lose my temper,confess a bible verse frequently that pertains to whatever situation I found myself struggling with, remain positive in a negative environment, don't speak ill of anyone, check my giving records because my checkbook truly revealed my heart, reflect on the way I have been treating my wife/children/co-workers/boss and so on and so forth.

 Sure sounds like a whole lot of work and responsibility on my end. And why shouldn't it? I mean think about it, God did His part.....He loved me when I was yet a sinner....He sent His only Son into the world to die upon a cross for me....and then if that wasn't enough, He sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in me...to teach me....to guide me...the Comforter as the bible describes Him....One called along side to help me in times of distress.....sure seems as though God has done His part so c'mon.....I have the easy part, all I have to do is believe and behave!

 Yet, at times that can seem to be an daunting task. Why is that? Well I believe that somewhere along the line I came to a fork in the road....and that fork was the understanding and application of FAITH. One way leads to my persuasion in Christ, and the other speaks of my persuasion of self. By what basis am I forming my "persuasion". Remember, faith is a persuasion.....especially a reliance upon Christ for salvation. If my persuasion is based upon my ability to POSSESS AND PERFORM all the characteristics of what we believe Christians should portray constantly, my persuasion is going to falter quite frequently. For to be persuaded of a matter, one must hold no conflict in mind that rises against that belief....in other words, if I believe that God is love and I also believe that God will take a young child from it's mother through disease, then I won't find myself persuaded that God heals. There is a conflict in my beliefs and therefore, my faith or persuasion about a matter is compromised.

 So how can we please God by our faith? Our faith must be founded in God's word, not man's circumstances or experiences. If if you say that God's word seems to contradict itself, simply look at the Gospels and the life of Jesus.....Jesus said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father". I don't recall any time that Jesus took a life....or refused to heal, deliver or provide for anyone He came across. Start there....start by trusting in Him.

 He didn't come to this earth to teach us how to live....He came to offer Himself as the wages for our iniquities so that we can boldly come to God's throne of Divine Influence (Grace) and receive help in time of need.

 God loves you....be persuaded of that fact today!

New Updates To Be Installed

Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. Our heart is like our "operating system". Much like your personal computer or your mobile phone, each one has an operating system which enables the device to work as it was created to function. I like the "Easy To Read" bible version of this verse of scripture, "Above all, be careful what you think because your thoughts control your life". What we believe will form how we function. If our heart (our belief system) understands that our Creator is a Loving Father who created us in His image and likeness, in order that we may experience the Life, the Peace, the Joy that He has in His Son and the Son has in the Father, we will operate in the design He purposed for us to experience. This is called the ZOE or GOD kind of life. That life was given us as a free gift...breathed into man at the time of creation...intended for us to experience for eternity. Then the deceiver came along and told Eve that if she and Adam would eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they will be "like God". At this point, man had determined by eating of the forbidden fruit that he would experience the God kind of life by knowing good and evil...by knowing what is right and what is wrong,purposing in his heart to do what was right and avoid that which is wrong. Adam believed that he would be able to "perform" correctly and thus be like God. In short, this belief is still prevalent in the church today. The enemy wants us to believe this so that our consciousness is focused on our sin...our performance... or our ability to do right and avoid wrong. But One greater than Adam came.....the last Adam Who would defeat death.....who would put an end to what Adam had done, forever defeating the law of sin consciousness by fulfilling the law on our behalf and thus establishing a new law....the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:2) For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.(Rom 5:19) So, if we believe in our heart (our operating system) that God is love.....that He lures us into this ZOE life by His love, freely giving us the life He designed us to experience....a life filled with His peace......His Joy.... despite what circumstances may appear to say....if this is the design of our operating system, we will then be able to function as He designed us to function. It is from this platform that His love will work in us and flow through us to a lost and dying world. This is the Good News that we are to preach to all the world! The news that One came to restore man to the operating system by which he was originally created. A system free from viruses....a system that includes " de-fragmentation software" which will sort out those fragments (pain, hurt, disappointment) accumulated in our hard drive by the experiences of this life and rearrange them into healthy segments that empower us to operate more efficiently. His design is one where we can rest in Him...the True Developer of a life where we can fellowship with Him in the cool of the day...where we can tap into His unlimited potential by GRACE (by the Divine influence in our hearts). So.....check your operating system.....what version are you running? The old version that says "By what I do, I will become" or the New Invitational Version that says, "By What He has done, I have become"! Click here to upload......

Forgiven!  

 

 

 When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, he wrongly assumed His God would be angry but instead God came looking for Him to take His regular evening walk.

When Abraham sent his wife, Sarah, into Pharaoh's tent to protect his own life by allowing her to have sex with another man, God told Pharaoh that he was on dangerous
ground and that he'd better get her out of there right now. The next words out of God's mouth to Abraham were to reassure him of the covenant He had made with him. Not a word about his sin.

When Elisha was depressed and afraid and angry and prayed to die, God sent an angel to feed him so that he might regain his strength. No shame or blame.

When Peter denied Jesus, our Lord made sure when he arose to mention Peter by name and said to make sure he knew Jesus was alive. No reference to what Peter had done.

These were giants in the Bible - giants who made horrific choices. In each instance, the love of God swallows up their sins and foolishness in one great gush of grace. It's absurd. What have you done that causes you to think God may be disappointed or perturbed toward you? Whatever it is, you need to set it aside because that's what He has done. As absurd as it sounds, God isn't interested in what you've done in the past. He lives with you in the now and wants you to live in this moment of grace and accept His forgiveness.

Jesus showed us our Father's heart when He had the Father of the prodigal son throw him a party when he returned home without so much as a mention of what the boy had done. That's your God.

Refuse to accept His acceptance and you'll lock yourself inside a prison of your own making. Accept His acceptance and you'll run in the joyful freedom only known by those who know their sins never appear on God's radar-- never.

You've messed up? Welcome to the world of great children of God. It happened. So put it aside now. Don't insult the finished work of Jesus on the cross by insisting on trying to share in dealing with it through your own gnawing guilt and spiritually suicidal self-consciousness. You are forgiven. You are free. You are one with the One who keeps no record of wrongs and promises to never remember them again.

So dance. Run. Laugh. Play. Celebrate. That's what the Father, Son and Spirit are doing and He asks you to join in right now.

This is a repost from "Grace Walk" by Steve McVey.  It was so good I thought I would share it.  

WHAT IS THERE TO BE JOYFUL ABOUT?



Psalm 100:1-4  Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. 
Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. 
Know ye that the LORD He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.

Verse 5: For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endureth to all generations.


We should start by reading verse 5 first. For once we get a revelation of this verse, will we freely, out of our own heart and not as an act of obedience, do verses 1 thru 4. 


The revelation I am referring to is a deeper understanding of the Hebrew in this text.


Psalm 100:5 For the Lord is GOOD (Hebrew word for good is"tob": meaning bountiful, cheerful, at ease,  (causes us to be in) favour, graciously, joyful, kindly, (full of) kindness,  merry,  most, pleasant, (full of) pleasure, precious, prosperity, sweet, wealth, welfare, (be) well ([-favoured]).


His MERCY is everlasting (Hebrew word for mercy "chesed" meaning  (His)  kindness; piety  (loyal reverence to a person or thing) beauty: - favour, good deed (-liness, -ness), kindly, (loving-) kindness, merciful (kindness),

His TRUTH endureth to all generations. Truth is the Hebrew word "emunah" meaning firmness, security, moral fidelity (the quality or state of being faithfull; exactness), faithfulness, stable, steady.

So, in context, we could read verse 5 this way:

Psalm 100:5  For the Lord is bountiful, cheerful and at ease toward us, He causes gracious favor to be upon us because He is kind, most pleasant; full of pleasure and prosperity. His mercy, His loyal reverence to His children and His loving-kindness is everlasting, without end. His truth; that is His firmness, His security His quality or state of being faithful to us; His exactness) in being stable and steady endures to all generations.

And with this understanding we will :

Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.

So be it.

Romans 14:12 - So then each one of us will give account concerning himself to God.

When I used to read this scripture, it made me a little uneasy.  Kinda like, "Oh no, what have I done that God is going to question me about when I get to heaven". I'm sure there have been many things that I have said or not said, done or not done that I would not want reminded of on that Great Day when I stand before God.  In fact, I could see this process taking a long time as God rolled out my "laundry list" of failures. I pity the fool who is in line behind me that day.

The GOOD NEWS of God's Mercy (His unmerited favor toward me and you) and His Grace (His Divine Influence in our heart) tells of a different story.  You see, when you look at this scripture in the original text, the Greek word "account" is actually the word LOGOS. 

Logos: something said (including the thought); by implication a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extension a computation; specifically (with the article in John) the Divine Expression (that is, Christ):

This word LOGOS is also found in the first chapter of the Gospel of John 1:1; In the beginning was the LOGOS (word), and the LOGOS (word)  was with God and the LOGOS (word) was God.... vs 14 and the LOGOS (word) was made flesh (Jesus) and dwelt among us....

See, when you look at the 14th chapter of Romans and read from verse 1, Paul is talking about Christians judging other Christians for their beliefs about what they eat or don't eat or different days they celebrate or don't celebrate.  I believe there are even more distinctions today that can fall under this category, but the bottom line is that one day we will all stand before God and give a "reasoning", a "computation" about what we did or didn't do in our body....and the Good News is that the reasoning is CHRIST!  All of our deeds and misdeeds have already been judged in Jesus Christ!  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!

Does this give us a license to sin or to act anyway we want with no consequence?  That is the fear that many Christians and Pastors experience preventing them from preaching this Good News. I look at it this way, there will always be those who, when confronted with someone gracious and kind, that will want to take advantage of that kindness. I, like many of you reading this feel compelled to love and serve that person more freely.

It is the love of God that brings men to repentance (turning and going in the opposite direction of our sin). Be encouraged today that when you stand before God on that day, you will be able to say, "I'm with Him (Jesus). He paid to get me in.  Hallelujah.