Brian’s Quiet Time Thoughts.

Our God is alive. He is able to hear, speak, feel, move, see, smell, and taste. Isaiah 65:24 (CSB) "Even before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will hear. Ezekiel 2:1 (CSB) He said to me, "Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak with you." Isaiah 41:10 (CSB) Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with my righteous right hand. Genesis 1:2 (CSB) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Deuteronomy 23:14 (CSB) "For the LORD your God walks throughout your camp to protect you and deliver your enemies to you; so your encampments must be holy. He must not see anything indecent among you or he will turn away from you. Numbers 28:2 (CSB) "Command the Israelites and say to them: Be sure to present to me at its appo

God does not say that He will leave us alone to live life through our own strength. But He does say that we can live this life through the power of the Holy Spirit and through Jesus who lives in us. Matthew 28:18-20 says that Jesus will be with us wherever we go. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We have all three parts of God in us, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Father (John 14:16,23). The Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirt are all one. They operate in different roles but with one plan, vision, and mind. Just as man is 3 parts; body, soul, and spirit so is God; body, soul, and spirit. We operate in the physical realm while God operates in the Spiritual realm. He operates in us to do His will here on the earth. Our soul was saved by Jesus. Or Spirit gets renewed by the Holy Spirit and We must make our bodies submit to our soul and spirit (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, 1 Corinthians 9:27).

The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. (1 John 5:6) Jesus is the truth. (John 14:6) The word of God is truth. (John 17:17) What God has said through His word the Holy Spirit testifies that it is true and will help you to remember what you know from it. Jesus is the way to God and the truth of what God said. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of Jesus and God. We are to know the Spirit of truth because He lives with us and  lives in us. We cannot have 2/3 of the God head and have all the best of God. God has sent the spirit of truth to us to be a help to us. Welcome the spirit of God into our lives to be the help He was intended to be! Isaiah 32:14-18 (CSB) 14 For the palace will be deserted, the busy city abandoned. The hill and the watchtower will become barren places forever, the joy of wild donkeys, and a pasture for flocks, 15 until the Spirit from on high is poured out on us. Then the desert will become an orchard, and the orchard will seem like a forest. 16 Then justice will inh

Just as there are 3 "if you love me" statements there are 3 promises (21,23). This is the first promise. God will give The Holy Spirit to be a counselor, just like Jesus, to be with us forever. The Holy Spirit is a good gift from God given on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). The Holy Spirit is given to us to be a help the miserable world around us. King Saul was given The Holy Spirit on the day He was anointed King over Israel, but then on the day Saul offered the sacrifice that Samuel was to offer God withdrew The Holy Spirit and an evil spirit was allowed to enter. God then gave The Holy Spirit to David who had The Holy Spirit for the rest of his days (1 Samuel 16:13). David was brought to Saul and whenever the evil spirit controlled Saul, David would play the harp and relief would come over Saul. As David had The Holy Spirt for the rest of his days so it is with us. We can have The Holy Spirt for the rest of our days. The Holy Spirit has not stopped being with Christian'

This is the first of three times in this chapter that Jesus says "if you love me" (verses 21,23).  If we love Jesus what are we going to do? Keep his commands!  What are the commands of Jesus? Love The Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Love one another. Love your enemies and pray for those who Persecute you.  In other words. Love God with all that you have. Love those who you come across just like you would want to be loved. Care for the Christians you know like Jesus would. Love those people who hate the fact that you are a christian and pray that God will show them the truth. In short Love God, the people in your world, other Christians, and those who do not like you. I think that just about includes everyone. (Matthew 22:36-40, John 13:34-35, John 15:12,17, Matthew 5:44) John 8:31,39 (CSB) Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, "If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. 39 &quo

These seven gifts are typically referred to as the motivational gifts. When serving God in your gift(s) they will excite you. For me my top 2 are service and giving. The five fold ministry gifts are: Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher (Ephesians 4:7-13). These are typically your job in the body. Mine may be Prophet and Teacher. The nine gifts of The Spirit are: prophesy, speaking in tongues, interpreting tongues, faith, healing, miracles, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, discernment (1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 28-31). These are the gifts the Holy Spirit uses in our lives to help encourage the body of Christ. Mine might be prophecy, word of wisdom and word of knowledge. It would take 293,930 people to reach all the different combinations of these three lists of gifts. What are your motivional, ministry, and gifts of The Spirit? Check out this link for more insight to the motivational gifts. Check out this link for a full description of the ministry and gifts of the s

All Christians are one with Jesus in one body to be his holy bride. Each person makes up one specific part of His body. He is the head who directs all the actions of the obedient  body. All the Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, and every other Christian Church is one in unity with Jesus. Each church has a given focus by God. Just as each individual member has a given focus by God. Without each person doing their job the world looses a good representation of God. Those whom you can reach I may not be able to. We are all individual bricks making up God Church. Our cornerstone is Jesus. To one side of Him we have Moses and the prophets to start our foundation. To the other side we have Peter and the apostles to finish our foundation. And since then we have been adding bricks to build His church. Jesus will not come back until the Church is complete with all the needed bricks, that is you and me! (John 17:23, Matthew 25:1-10, Isaiah 28:16, Matthew 21:42, Matthew 16:18)

Thinking of body parts I think of the Lego Ninjago movie. Lloyd the green ninja looses his arm and his dad is helping find it. No matter what his dad finds and tries to reason why it would be great to have it as an arm it just would not work for Lloyd. He wants his arm back. So it is in our body. So it is in God's church. Every person has a part to be. Consider what  1 Corinthians 12:12-26 has to say (CSB) 12 For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body -- so also is Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body -- whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free -- and we were all given one Spirit to drink. 14 Indeed, the body is not one part but many. 15 If the foot should say, "Because I'm not a hand, I don't belong to the body," it is not for that reason any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, "Because I'm not an eye, I don't belong to the body," i

A measure of faith is given to everyone of us. First it is the faith to accept Jesus as our savior, faith to be saved. Next would be faith to believe His word. Faith to do His word would then follow. Faith to believe the Holy Spirit might come next. Faith to follow the Holy Spirit. And so on until we get the faith to die and spend eternity with Him. For some it may take a few seconds to move from one faith to another. For others it may take a life time to move form one to the next. The most important part we must keep moving forward to the next faith journey God has for us. As we use our faith in response to Him I believe He can give us a new measure of faith pressed down and running over (Luke 6:38). This is the way with anything we can give to God, money, time, possessions, faith, love, ... etc. Colossians 2:6-7 (CSB)  6 So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were

Sensibly means having, using, or showing good sense or sound judgment (dictionary.com). The new living translation says: Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves. We are not to think too highly or too lowly but honestly of ourselves. God has a pretty high view of us who obey His commands (Deuteronomy 28:1-14). However the opposite is also true. Those who do not obey God there are many curses in store for them (Deuteronomy 28:15-68). For those who are in Christ we have amazing blessing from God (Ephesians 1:3). Is our viewpoint of ourselves the same as God's? When we are seeking after God and his viewpoint of us is high is ours also high? When we are stuck in sin and waisting our live away is our view point the same as God's? Are we eager to run back to God as He is eager to welcome us back? The prodigal son is the best example of God toward the sinner and the saint. God will give us everything that is to be ours. For the son or daughter who is out spending God's blessing

Pride is the sin that got satin kicked out of heaven. He wanted God's throne and would not repent of his pride (Isaiah 14:13-14). In his pride he is still trying to take it by force. There is a reason why God choose to use Moses (Exodus 3:11, Numbers 12:3), Gideon (judges 6:15), and David (2 Samuel 7:18-29). They were humble. 2 Chronicles 7:14 (CSB)  and my people, who bear my name, humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. Isaiah 66:2 (CSB)  My hand made all these things, and so they all came into being. This is the LORD's declaration. I will look favorably on this kind of person: one who is humble, submissive in spirit, and trembles at my word. Daniel 10:12 (CSB)  "Don't be afraid, Daniel," he said to me, "for from the first day that you purposed to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your prayers were heard. I have come because of yo

In my bible I have underlined Romans 11:21-22 and linked it with Romans 12:1-2. Why? Romans 11 talks about God's severity and kindness and Romans 12 talks about conforming and transforming. If we want God's severity in our lives then by all means we can be conformed to this present age. But if we want God's kindness then we must be transformed! Transformed in our actions, yes, but even more transformed in our thinking. Whatever we spend our time thinking about that is what we will do and become! So how do we transform our minds? Through the washing of the word of God (Titus 3:5, Ephesians 5:26). That is done through hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating on the word of God. Then we will be able to discern what is the Good, Pleasing, and Perfect will of God! (Romans 10:17, Revelation 1:3, Acts 17:11, Psalm 119:9,11, Psalm 1:2-3) Romans 11:21-22 (CSB)  21 because if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. 22 Therefore, consider

God wants us alive! He wants us to be useable for His work both in the flesh and in the spirit. Whenever His work is done for us then He will take us to heaven. Until then He wants our life, all of it. And we can give it all to Him by loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. In this way we become living sacrifices for God. This then is our reasonable service (KJV)  it is not the above the top service, like what some would expect from a pastor, but what is expected of every believer! (Matthew 22:36-39, 2 Corinthians 5:7:15, John 14:15-25)

Grace and obedience are two objects on a seesaw. If we only rely on grace we can get trapped in "I can do anything I want because God's grace covers all my sins". If we only rely on obedience we can get trapped into having to do everything in order to be justified. However if we keep the seesaw balanced grace covers those things that we have not yet submitted to God and yet are obedient to the things which God has shown us to be obedient to then we are in God's Love. Paul saw God's grace to do two things in Ephesians 3:7-9.   1. Proclaim Jesus to the world   2. Explain God to everyone God gives is the same tasks and his grace helps in our weakness. 1 Peter 4:10 (CSB)  Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God. James 4:6 (CSB)  But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. ( 2 Corinthians 12:9, Romans 8:26, Deuteronomy 29:29)