The daily podcast with Richard Ellis. Follow / Like him @TalkWithRichard
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The greatest two commandments are to love God and love others. We cannot do the second without first doing the first, and we cannot love God until we receive His love for us. When we are relationally aligned vertically, we can’t help but spill out that love onto anyone else we come in contact with.
A true friend is someone who mourns when you mourn and rejoices when you rejoice. This is the kind of friendships that should be among believers in the church because others will look at that relationship and believe that they can be loved and accepted as well. All friendships have to be grounded in love.
No one knows when Jesus will come again, but while we wait for His return our job is to spread the Gospel to the world. God will equip us with all that we need to fulfill His purpose on this earth, we just need to be obedient in preparing ourselves and others for Jesus’ return.
God has had a plan in place since before there was time, and He wants to use us to accomplish that plan. The work He has set up for us to do is what we must finish, pouring all of our effort and energy into it. No matter if we’ve quit for a time, we always have the option to pick up and start again so that we can finish strong.
God has given us His Spirit once we make Jesus our Lord and Savior to guide us in our everyday decisions. We need to walk with the Spirit continuously so that we are always in tune to hearing His direction and following His leading.
Since the beginning God saw that it was not good for man to be alone. He created us for community with Himself and with each other. When we live life together with others, we are held accountable and are able to grow stronger and healthier as God transforms us into the people He created us to be.
The truth about sin is that it reveals our nakedness, but a sacrifice must be had in order for us to be covered. Jesus chose to put on mankind, live amongst us, be violently beaten and hung completely exposed for our sake. When we stop running around using the temporary things of this world to seemingly cover us for a time, we will find the peace that our soul longs for.
Just as armies in the Old Testament waited for God’s leading before they went into battle, we need to wait on God to follow Him so that He can fight our battles for us and we can be conquerors. We must have faith in what we cannot see to know that God fights for us and loves us.
The world is full of temptations, and the devil is constantly offering anything we could want in return for our soul to stay dead in trespasses and sins. Jesus came and died for us, making it possible to be saved. The only way for our soul to be in eternity with God forever is by choosing to deny the temptations of this world and our flesh and follow Jesus.
Just as there is purpose for the fruit that grows on trees, there is purpose for the fruit of the Spirit that grows in us. God wants to use us to reach the world, but we are only able to be used by Him and grow fruit when we remain connected to Him in every area of our lives.
The Bible tells us that if we remain connected to God that He will work in our lives, sometimes in painful ways, to prune away the areas that are not productive. As Christians, we are to bear much fruit from His Spirit, and when others see that fruit they glorify Him.
Since Adam screwed everything up by bringing sin into the world, Jesus came and paid the price to offer us a second birth so that we may become eternally alive spiritually. When the Holy Spirit speaks to us to take Him up on this offer, we must respond and receive this gift.
God’s Spirit lives inside of us when we become Christians, and it is through the power of His Spirit that we are prompted to speak to others about the Gospel. We need to have His power turned on in our lives so that we can respond to those prompts and fulfill His purpose in and through us.
The Bible is very clear that not only did Jesus come to earth in a real body taking on real flesh, but it was also His real flesh that was resurrected from the dead. Through His victory, He offers us a new life where He can live in and through us and change the world.
Life is like the TiVo function on a TV in that God is outside of time and knows all that will happen because He’s already designed it and seen it happen. The Bible tells us about what the end times will be like and it is necessary that we heed to warnings given and share them with others.