All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go and make disciples of all men!

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’” Matthew 28:18-20 NASB.

Jesus has paid the price for our sins, and has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. He commands all who are His to go and make disciples of all men. And He is with us until the end of the world. This is a wonderful promise! If we wish to go out and tell others about God’s love and the salvation that Jesus bought for us, Jesus will be with us until the end of the world! It is because of the price that He paid for our sins, that we can go out and help win others for the kingdom. Let us rejoice and be glad for the great salvation He bought for us!

This command that Jesus gave us is a promise, that He would give us the power to make disciples of all men. When Jesus said this it was very near Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit would be poured out without measure upon His people who were gathered there in that upper room, and would be given to all Christians who would repent and be baptized. This same power is also available to us now, if we wish to be Jesus’ disciple! Acts 1 also talks about this same event where Jesus gave His last message to His disciples before He ascended back into heaven. He said to His disciples, “He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.’” Acts 1:7-8 NASB. Here is the secret to how they could preach the gospel to the whole world: they would receive power from God, the Holy Spirit to do so!

Many people do not fully realize what Christ has been given since He died on the cross, and provided the victory for us. They don’t live their lives like they fully, really believe that He won the victory on the cross for them, and has now been given all power in Heaven and on Earth. They want to say that Christ only forgives them when they confess their sins, or that they are just saved, with not much of a change or difference in their life after their conversion. Many don’t realize the power from Him that they can claim. If anyone desires to do Christ’s bidding and go tell the good news of the gospel to the world, Jesus will be with them, even until the end of the world! He will provide them with the power to preach this message with power, and will help the hearers of the message want to be saved. The power to bring honor and glory to Jesus and His Father has been promised to all Christians, not just grace to forgive us after we sin. The power to not live a hypocritical life, the power to live a righteous life for Him and the power to give His testimony to the world. These were all promised to us by Jesus, since He was victorious over sin and death, and paid for our sins, now all power has been given to Him both in Heaven and on earth! Let’s live our life, like we believe what He said! Let’s not live our lives, barely eking out a spiritual existence, and feeling guilty that we are not doing enough for Him or the Father. Why should we starve or thirst, when the fountain flowing from the river of life is within our reach, and when we have been provided with the bread of life? Just take the bread of life and a deep drink from the river of life that He has provided for you, and have a new life with Him! But take this every day, and every time you hunger and thirst, and you will be filled and satisfied with the goodness of God! Don’t starve yourself or let yourself go thirsty, but be filled with God’s love, you need it!

Let us also believe that He will give us the power to be His witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth as He said in Acts 1:8. We don’t have to be worried, or worry if we are good enough to be saved, or whether we are a good enough preacher to preach the word to others, or good enough at whatever gift God has given to us that He wants us to use for Him. No reason for guilt or fear. Just trust and believe Jesus when He said that all power has been given to Him in Heaven and on earth, and go out with joy, and help others see how much He and His Father love them! This is the gospel message! This is the good news! It’s not about how good we are, or what we can do for Him, it’s about what He and His Father and the Holy Spirit can do for us! Just cooperate with God, yield your heart to Him, and be filled with the Holy Spirit! Pray for this, breathe this, and live for this! Then go forth with great joy and great power, after you have received power from on high, and bring honor and glory to God! He deserves it doesn’t He? What brings honor and glory to God? When someone is saved by the blood of Jesus and transformed from a son or daughter of perdition or a son or daughter of sin, into a son or daughter of God! But what even brings more glory to God, is when His own children reproduce is character of love and want to go out and show this to the world! Then He is delighted to grant them the full power, love and joy that the Holy Spirit brings to the soul who is devoted to Him; this is the power to make others the son or daughter of God too!

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all! Amen.

By John Foll
©Copyright 2017 by John Foll


Click here for a Free PDF of this article!


#authority #Jesus #Christ #Messiah #disciples #promise #Holy #Spirit, #Gospel #peace #love #joy #faith #hope #believe #victory #salvation #bread, #life #river

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God

By John Foll

“Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.” 1 John 5:1 NASB. The child born of Him represents primarily Jesus, the Son of God, but could also mean any child of God who is truly born again. If we are born of God, we will also love all others who are born of God too.

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. I.e. whoever believes that Jesus is the Savior of the world is born of God. He who is not truly born again or born of God does not truly believe that Jesus is the Christ. This is the test to whether we are born again or not or please God or not: whether we truly believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world! Do you believe that Jesus is the Savior of the World? Then you are born of God. Are you born of God? Then you are born again and are overcoming the world, have faith, and are keeping the commandments of God, and have life from God and this wonderful change in your heart. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” 1 John 5:2-4 NASB. Are you overcoming the world? Are you keeping His commandments? Do you have Faith? Do you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of the world? Do you find God’s commandments to be burdensome? Or do you find that keeping them is a delight? If you are not fully born again and not fully born of God, you will be unable to do these positive things and consider the commandments to be a burden, because humanly none of us can fully keep God’s commandments without His help. Are you breaking God’s commandments? (By habit or by desire.) Then you are not yet fully born of God. Or do you confess your sins when you break His commandments? If you do not have that born again experience that Jesus said that all are required to have before they can enter the kingdom of Heaven (John 3:3, 5), then you don’t fully believe yet that Jesus is the Savior of the world, it’s that simple. But don’t give up, there is still hope. The door of mercy is still open for you, open it, receive God’s forgiveness and be cleansed from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9. So confess your sins, contemplate the love of God, and of Jesus His Son, and then you will believe and know that Jesus is the Savior of the world and you will become born again!

Again John the beloved breaks it down for us in such profound and easy to understand terms:

“The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” 1 John 5:10-12 NASB. With John there is no middle ground, either we are for God or against Him. Either we believe in the Son of God and give this testimony of Him of His love for the world, and are born again, or we are not and find God’s commandments to be a burden, because we cannot keep them or consider them to be a delight, until we have a change of heart by letting the Holy Spirit change us. Either we have the Son and have life or we have no life in us and do not have eternal life. Either we are born again and believe in Jesus or we make God out to be a liar and believe not the Son. There is no middle ground.

It is the Spirit that testifies, because this Spirit is the truth, or ‘the Spirit of Truth’.  John 16:13. When someone wants to tell others ‘the truth’ they should testify of Jesus, and give a message in harmony with the Spirit of Truth. If anyone doesn’t testify the truth of Jesus and His Father’s love for the world, or are not telling the truth in love to others, they are not really giving a true testimony of Jesus, but a false one. It matters not how many of ‘the truths’ in the Bible that they believe or are correct on, if they don’t get this one truth, then they are not giving a true testimony of Jesus or the Father and are not born again and have not the Son and have not life. No one can give a true testimony of Jesus all the time, if they have not yielded their heart completely to God. If you are yielding your heart to God at the time you give a testimony of Jesus, then you can give a true testimony of Him, but it is much better to be consistent and yield yourself to God at all times, so that your life can be fully in harmony with Him. Unbelievers often look at the ‘so called’ children of God and mock them and think that there is nothing to this Christian faith. This is because often the “children of God” have not yielded themselves fully to God yet. Let’s pray for the power to consistently be a son or daughter of God, so that He will always be honored by our lives and the way we live, not just when we are trying to ‘tell’ others about God or ‘the truth’. And it is our faith that helps us to gain the victory over the world, and to appropriate God’s many and precious promises to help us in our time of need. To the true believer, what John says here is really true: “We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.” 1 John 5:18 NASB. If we are fully born of God, as long as we stay connected to the vine, Jesus, the evil one cannot make us go against God; God’s power is too great to allow the soul who trusts in Him to be snatched out of His hand. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.” John 10:27-29 NASB.

“Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.” 1 John 5:5-6 NASB.

So let us believe the words of John and believe in Jesus, that we may be born again, born of God, and be an overcomer, and then we can have life from God and from above, and give a true testimony of Jesus! God’s promises are true, not some speaker or writer’s rambling or quailing over what the word of God says. Let God’s word tell you the truth, and do not let anyone confuse you. Study it much, and with much prayer, and the Holy Spirit will explain it to you. If you obey everything the Holy Spirit has revealed to you and made plain from the Bible, more of this truth will be revealed to you. God’s word, the Bible, says what it means and means what it says. It’s easy to understand, if you will just take it as it reads and in context (don’t just pick out part of a text, but read it in a larger section first), although there may be some parables and prophecies that you need to study more in depth to know what they mean. But the essentials of salvation are easy for all to understand who want to believe, and want the promised blessing of a new life with God and eternal happiness, peace, love and joy!

May the grace of God be with you!

Click here for a Free PDF of this article!

#Born #God #Jesus #Savior #Messiah #Confess #Believe #Forgiveness #Cleansed #Spirit #Truth #Overcomer #New #Life #Testimony #Prayer #Peace #Love #Joy #Essential  

For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard

By John Foll, 12-9-2016

“But Peter and John answered and said unto them, ‘Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.’” Acts 4:19-20 KJV. Their answer to the rulers at Jerusalem indicates that they were determined to keep the command of Jesus to tell of God’s love to the world, regardless of what their religious leaders told them. Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8; Acts 5:19-21. They didn’t mind the obstacles that were placed in their way to hinder them, or the mistreatment they received, but counted it all joy to suffer for Jesus’ sake. “And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.” Acts 5:40-42 KJV. They didn’t stop preaching Jesus, even after they were beaten and warned to stop. The prophet Jeremiah states the desire to speak of what he had seen and heard of God like this: “But if I say, ‘I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name,’ then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it.” Jeremiah 20:9 NASB. Thus when you love Jesus, you cannot help but speak of what He did for you, like the Apostles and the prophets of old did!

If you have heard and seen that Jesus and His Father love you, and that Jesus died to save you, and believe, you cannot help but tell it to others what God has done for you! If you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good (Psalms 34:8), and ‘have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come’ Hebrews 6:4-5 NASB, you cannot help but speak of these things that you have seen and heard to as many who will listen, or you will greatly long to show them His love or help them in whatever way God has given you the ability to do. Failure to do this will cause your wells of water and springs to run dry.

If you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, it will be just as natural for you as it was for Peter, James, John and the other Apostles to speak of God’s love and the gospel to the world, as they did in the book of Acts. Or to do your part to help in whatever way the Spirit has given you the ability and the gifts to do. It will be your greatest desire! If you have not really seen, heard, or believed, then you will be unable to tell this truth effectively to others, unless you pray for God’s special blessing until you get it. God can still bless you before you have completely consecrated yourself to Him, but it is much better to taste the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit that God wants to give you! Once you have tasted of this wonderful gift of God, you cannot help but testify of Jesus and the Father’s love. And you will never thirst again, for Jesus said, “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:14 KJV. “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'" But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” John 7:37-39 NASB. So we see here that the gift to satisfy our thirst that Jesus promised, is the promise of the Holy Spirit, and it was to be given to all willing Christians, starting at Pentecost (Acts 1:4-5, 8) to the end of time, to all who are thirsty and believe in Jesus. These are the conditions. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6 KJV. These words are still true for us today, if we will hunger and thirst after God’s righteousness, we will be filled! Thus this promise of the Holy Spirit is for all who are thirsty for Jesus’ love, and hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled, if they believe in Him.

Now let’s recap and finish our passage in Hebrews 6: “For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.” Hebrews 6:4-8 NASB. Jesus says something similar to this when He said, “If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” John 15:6 KJV. Again this reiterates that those who have tasted of the Heavenly gift of the Holy Spirit, and have not continued to abide in Christ, will become withered and they will eventually be gathered and cast into the fire at the judgement, unless they repent.

It is beyond our belief how someone could experience the wonder of the gift of being born again, receiving the Holy Spirit, and ever want to go back to their life without the Holy Spirit again, but Hebrews 6:4-8 says that it can happen. And in fact there were a few examples in the Bible where it did happen. Read about Balaam the prophet (Numbers 22, 24; 31:8, 16; 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 1:11), and the prophet who was slain by the lion. 1 Kings 13:11-30.

We also note that Samson, who had the Holy Spirit, lost Him through disobedience, but at the end of his life he prayed to God, and God heard His prayer and avenged His enemies, by allowing Samson to slay more in his death, of God’s enemies, than in his life. *We believe by faith that God forgave Samson, because he is mentioned in Hebrews 11:32, and because God heard is prayer at the end of his life and gave him his miraculous strength back, because we know that God heareth not sinners. John 9:31. See Judges 14:5-6; 19, 15:14; 16:20-21 for information proving that Samson had the Holy Spirit. Samson probably didn’t really appreciate the wonderful gift of strength that was given to him before he lost it and his eyes were put out. But we believe that he wanted the Lord’s help again just before he died, to serve God’s command for his life one last time. Judges 16:22-31. And God worked a miracle, so Samson’s life was not in vain, and used him to help His people out of their desperate situation with their enemies. Samson’s enemies had mocked God and thought that their gods were more powerful, because they had given him into their hands. But this wasn’t so. God allowed the Philistines to capture and imprison Samson because of his sin, not because their gods were more powerful. In fact their "gods" were not gods at all but devilish imposters. God avenged His name among the heathen by Samson’s sacrifice of his life, when he enabled Samson to bring down the house on the lords of the Philistines and the people gathered there with them. So Samson hadn’t fully appreciated the gift of God he had been given, but later regretted it and God forgave him, when he turned back to Him in prayer.

                *We want to thank our stepdad, David Jenkins, for reminding us of this wonderful fact about Samson in Hebrews 11.

So there is hope for you, if you used to have a born again experience with God, and you have let it slip away - if you will repent now. Maybe you didn’t fully know what you had? Maybe you have been in a lukewarm state for a long time, without the love of God fully in your life, or the joy that knowing Him brings? Do you long for the experience that you once had with God? How long has it been? God will take you back, if you will return to Him with all your heart! “Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:12-13 NASB. But we believe that if you have lost it, that you probably hadn’t experienced it in its fullness, because Hebrews 6:4-8 says that it is hard to walk away, if you have ever fully tasted the fruits of God’s precious Holy Spirit in your heart in full force. It is the most precious thing you can ever experience in this life!

It is hard to walk away from this experience of knowing Jesus and His Father. Why would you want to? But it is also a most dangerous thing to live in a lukewarm Christian state, neither for God nor against Him, but in the middle. Revelation 3:14-17. That is why this passage in Hebrews 6:4-8 is given, for our instruction.

Jesus says to His Church today: “'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.” Revelation 3:20-21 NASB. Amen! Let it be so. When you hear Jesus knocking on the door of your heart, open it up and let Him come in. You will never regret it, we promise you! “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.’” John 14:23 NASB. Jesus promise to you is: if you will open the door of your heart, let Him come in and dine with you and you with Him, and if you will keep His Word, He and His Father will love you and come and make their abode with you! Oh precious promise! Amen! 

Click here for a Free PDF of this article!

#rejoice #suffer #joy #speak #heard #love #taste #God #good #abide #Born #Again #Holy #Spirit #disciple #believe #hunger #thirst #righteousness #gift