GOD WANTS ALL OF YOU.
Your Doubt Doesn’t Cause God to Doubt
Everlastingsalvationchurchofgod.com
Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matt. 14:31)
Some of us are quiet doubters. We’re afraid to let anyone know that we’re not always sure whether God loves us or confident that he has brought us into his family. That’s embarrassing to admit—especially if you’ve been a Christian for a while.
You may have even helped other people to come to Christ or grow in their faith, but here you are wondering, “Does he really love me?” Who can you share that with? Other believers might think less of you or not let you serve anymore. Or, worse, your uncertainty might cause someone else to stumble.
The apostle Peter was different. He was one of those guys who could live out his faith publicly—even when it was embarrassing.
Jesus had called him to be one of his apostles (see Luke 6:13–14). He wanted Peter to be with him, and he wanted to send him out to preach (see Mark 3:14). Peter was part of Jesus’s inner circle, and he was also the first person to publicly declare that Jesus was God’s Messiah (see Matt. 16:15–20). But, not too much earlier, his confidence in Christ had faltered.
He and the other disciples had been in a boat and were not making much progress as they headed into a strong wind—when Jesus walked out to them on the surface of the lake. Peter asked Jesus to invite him to come to him on top of the waves, and Jesus did.
Peter started well. He stepped out of the boat and began walking toward Jesus, but then he looked around and was overawed at the power of the broken creation that opposed them, and he began to sink. Jesus rescued him, but also called him out, saying, “Why did you doubt?”
Jesus named the issue publicly, but not to shame Peter or embarrass him. Nor did that doubt follow him the rest of his life to affect his relationship with Christ or his ministry. Peter not only continued to be an apostle but also helped to lead the other apostles after Jesus ascended into heaven, and he was the vehicle through which Jesus turned many people from their sins to himself (see Acts 2:14–41).
Doubt did not forever define Peter or mark how Jesus related to him—it didn’t discourage Jesus, back him off, or make him rethink his choice. Jesus put his finger on the problem so that Peter could move beyond it instead of staying stuck in it. Peter’s doubt in God did not make God doubt his choice of Peter or his plans for Peter’s life.
In the same way, your doubt in his love does not cause Jesus to doubt the wisdom of loving you. He doesn’t believe that doubt will have the last word on you. You shouldn’t either.
Jesus loves you, regardless of your doubts. No doubt of yours will make him back away or disown you.
Are you afraid of talking with God about your doubts? Ask him to show you how your doubt doesn’t intimidate him or turn him against you. Ask him to show you instead how much he wants to free you from your doubt.
Act: Have you been afraid to tell other people your doubts? Ask God for a friend or mentor who can handle hearing what you’re wrestling with and can help you to see that God is not afraid of your secret doubts.
I HOPE YOU FOUND THIS REFRESHER TO BE HELPFUL.
PASTOR ANDRA HIGGINBOTHAM
Becoming a Christian is personal and public
Everlastingsalvationchurchofgod.com
CHECK YOURSELF: ARE YOU ASHAMED TO TELL PEOPLE JESUS IS YOUR LORD? ARE YOU ASHAMED TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT GOD? DO YOU BELIEVE GOD RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD?
ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?
PASTOR ANDRA HIGGINBOTHAM
JESUS IS ALIVE
Everlastingsalvationchurchofgod.com
“And Jesus Christ our Lord was shown to be the Son of God when God powerfully raised him from the dead by means of the Holy Spirit.” Rom. 1:4
“Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” Romans 8:34
JESUS IS ALIVE!!!
JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD.
JESUS INTERCEDES ON OUR BEHALF TO GOD.
PASTOR:
ANDRA HIGGINBOTHAM
THE BIBLE SPEAKS TO US ABOUT DECISIONS
(IT’S UP TO US TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISIONS.)
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Following God fully.
Numbers 32:12
Only Caleb (son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite) and Joshua (son of Nun) will get to see the land. This is because they wholeheartedly followed the LORD.
Necessary to the service of God.
Luke 9:62
Jesus said to him, “Whoever starts to plow and looks back is not fit for God’s kingdom.”
Seeking God with the heart.
2 Chronicles15:12
They made an agreement with one another to dedicate their lives to serving the LORD God of their ancestors with all their heart and soul.
Keeping the commandments of God.
Nehemiah 10:29
They joined their relatives, the nobles, in binding themselves with a curse and an oath to follow God’s teachings given by Moses, God’s servant. They also bound themselves to follow all the commandments, rules, and regulations of the LORD our Lord.
Being on the Lord’s side.
Exodus 32:26
he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “If you’re on the LORD’s side, come over here to me!” Then all the Levites gathered around him.
Loving God perfectly.
Deuteronomy 6:5
Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
Blessedness of.
Joshua 1:7
“Only be strong and very courageous, faithfully doing everything in the teachings that my servant Moses commanded you. Don’t turn away from them. Then you will succeed wherever you go.
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ALLOW THESE VERSES TO BE A GUIDE UNTO YOUR LIFE.
PASTOR ANDRA HIGGINBOTHAM
ETERNAL DEATH
The necessary consequence of sin.
Romans 6:16
Don’t you know that if you offer to be someone’s slave, you must obey that master? Either your master is sin, or your master is obedience. Letting sin be your master leads to death. Letting obedience be your master leads to God’s approval.
Romans 8:13
If you live by your corrupt nature, you are going to die. But if you use your spiritual nature to put to death the evil activities of the body, you will live.
James 1:13–15
When someone is tempted, he shouldn’t say that God is tempting him. God can’t be tempted by evil, and God doesn’t tempt anyone. Everyone is tempted by his own desires as they lure him away and trap him. Then desire becomes pregnant and gives birth to sin. When sin grows up, it gives birth to death.
The wages of sin.
Romans 6:23
The payment for sin is death, but the gift that God freely gives is everlasting life found in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The portion of the wicked.
Matthew 25:41
“Then the king will say to those on his left, ‘Get away from me! God has cursed you! Go into everlasting fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels!
Matthew 25:46
“These people will go away into eternal punishment, but those with God’s approval will go into eternal life.”
Romans 1:32
Although they know God’s judgment that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do these things but also approve of others who do them.
Christ, the only way of escape from.
John 3:16
God loved the world this way: He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save the world.
Acts 4:12
No one else can save us. Indeed, we can be saved only by the power of the one named Jesus and not by any other person.”
ALLOW THESE VERSES TO BE A GUIDE UNTO YOUR LIFE.
Everlastingsalvationchurchofgod.com
PASTOR ANDRA HIGGINBOTHAM
WE MUST TESTIFY ABOUT JESUS
Everlastingsalvationchurchofgod.com
1 PETER 2:24 AMP
He personally carried our sins in His body on the cross [willingly offering Himself on it, as on an altar of sacrifice], so that we might die to sin [becoming immune from the penalty and power of sin] and live for righteousness; for by His wounds you [who believe] have been healed.
THANK’S TO JESUS, SIN DOESN’T HAVE POWER OVER US. STOP SINNING, LIVE A RIGHTEOUS LIFE.
Acts 4:33
With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all.
WE MUST CONTINUE TO TESTIFY TO THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD JESUS. WE MUST TELL PEOPLE THAT JESUS GOT UP, AND THAT JESUS IS ALIVE. JESUS IS ALIVE IN US. GLORY!!! HALLELUJAH!!!
PASTOR:
ANDRA HIGGINBOTHAM
EXODUX CHAPTER SIX VERSE SIX
God promises to be found by those who seek him.
Everlastingsalvationchurchofgod.com
Proverbs 8:17
I love those who love me. Those eagerly looking for me will find me.
Matthew 7:7–8
“Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. Everyone who asks will receive. The one who searches will find, and for the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
2 Chronicles 15:1–2
God’s Spirit came to Azariah, son of Oded. Azariah went to Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa and all you men from Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you when you are with him. If you will dedicate your lives to serving him, he will accept you. But if you abandon him, he will abandon you.
Psalm 119:2
Blessed are those who obey his written instructions. They wholeheartedly search for him.
Psalm 34:8–10
Taste and see that the LORD is good. Blessed is the person who takes refuge in him. Fear the LORD, you holy people who belong to him. Those who fear him are never in need. Young lions go hungry and may starve, but those who seek the LORD’s help have all the good things they need.
God’s desire is that all people should seek after him and find him. Those who seek God with all their heart are rewarded, but those who fail to seek him do so to their eternal loss.
ALLOW THESE VERSES TO BE A GUIDE UNTO YOUR LIFE.
PASTOR ANDRA HIGGINBOTHAM
I am the vine, ye are the branches.
—John 15:5
Everlastingsalvationchurchofgod.com
In the previous verse, Christ said, “Abide in Me.” He then announced the great, unalterable law of all branch-life, on earth or in heaven, “not…of itself,” “except it abide.” In the opening words of the parable, He has already spoken, “I am the true vine.” He now repeats the words. He wants us to understand—note well the lesson, simple as it appears, it is the key to the abiding life—that the only way to obey the command, “Abide in me,” is to have our eyes and heart fixed on Him.
“Abide in Me…I am the true vine.” Yes, study this holy mystery until you see Christ as the true Vine, bearing, strengthening, supplying, and inspiring all His branches. He will be and do in each branch all that it needs, and the abiding will come of itself.
Yes, gaze upon Him as the true Vine, until you feel what a heavenly mystery it is and are compelled to ask the Father to reveal it to you by His Holy Spirit. He to whom God reveals the glory of the true Vine—he who sees what Jesus is and waits to do every moment—can do nothing but abide. The vision of Christ is an irresistible attraction; it draws and holds us like a magnet. Listen continually to the living Christ still speaking to you and waiting to show you the meaning and power of His Word: “I am the vine.”
How much weary labor is involved in striving to understand what abiding is! How much fruitless effort goes along with trying to attain it! Why is this? Because the attention is turned to the abiding as a work we have to do, instead of the living Christ, in whom we have to abide. He is Himself to hold and keep us. We think of abiding as a continual strain and effort—we forget that it means rest from effort to one who has found the place of his abode.
Notice how Christ said, “Abide in Me. I am the Vine that brings forth and holds and strengthens and makes fruitful the branches. Abide in Me, rest in Me, and let Me do My work. I am the true Vine. All I am and speak and do is divine truth, giving the actual reality of what is said. I am the Vine; only consent and yield your all to Me. I will do all in you.”
And sometimes it happens that souls, who have never been especially occupied with the thought of abiding, abide all the time, because they are occupied with Christ. Not that the word abide is not important. Christ used it so often because it is the very key to the Christian life. But He wants us to understand it in its true sense. “Come out of every other place, and every other trust and occupation; come out of self with its reasoning and efforts; come and rest in what I will do. Live out of yourself; abide in Me. Know that you are in Me; you need no more. Remain there in Me.”
“I am the vine.” Christ did not keep this mystery hidden from His disciples. He revealed it—first in words here, then in power when the Holy Spirit came down. He will reveal it to us, too—first in the thoughts and confessions and desires these words awaken, then in power by the Spirit. Let us wait on Him to show us all the heavenly meaning of the mystery. Let our chief thought and aim each day in our quiet time—in the inner chamber with Him and His Word—be to get the heart fixed on Him. Let us be assured that all a vine can ever do for its branches, my Lord Jesus will do—is doing—for me. Give Him time. Give Him your ear, that He may whisper and explain the divine secret: “I am the vine.”
Above all, remember, Christ is the Vine of God’s planting, and you are a branch of God’s grafting. Stand always before God, in Christ—waiting for all grace from God, in Christ. Yielding yourself to bear the “more fruit” for which the Husbandman asks, in Christ. And pray much for the revelation of the mystery that all the love and power of God that rested on Christ is working in you, too. “I am God’s Vine,” Jesus says, “All I am I have from Him; all I am is for you; God will work it in you.”
I am the Vine. Blessed Lord, speak that word into my soul. Then I will know that all Your fullness is for me. And I can count on You to stream it into me. My abiding is so easy and so sure when I forget and lose myself in the adoring faith that the Vine holds the branch and supplies its every need.
THIS IS A VERY POWERFUL REFRESHER. I URGE YOU TO STUDY IT, READ IT MORE THAN ONCE, AND I PROMISE YOU WILL BE BLESSED BY IT.
PASTOR ANDRA HIGGINBOTHAM
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