My Word to you for 2017: You are just as much in Christ as you have ever been or ever will be! He can't possibly Love you any more or less today than He did yesterday or than He will tomorrow! God IS Love! The same benefits that were yours in 2016 (and in all prior years) are still yours! Christ in you is still the Hope of Glory! Amongst many other wonderful things, He calls you His Wife, His Brother or Sister, His Body, His Friend, His Living Epistle, and the Apple of ...His Eye! You are loved, valued, accepted and blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ! Through Him you have access to all things that pertain to life and godliness! You no longer have to rely on your own performance by trying to produce the Fruit or Gifts of the Spirit; and there is no shortage or rationing of the New Wine! You are free to rest in HIS PERFORMANCE...as you function through HIS Faith, which works by HIS Love! Freely you have received, NOW...Freely give!

No rhymes, No limericks, No numerology, Nothing spooky, No fortune cookie messages, No Christianese horoscopes, No 'carrot & stick' words promising to give you what you already have or make you who you already are, and No words coming from a compulsion to perform prophetically, because a New Year is just around the corner. Just Truth!

Regarding New Year's "Words": Trust the Peace of Christ to be the referee in your heart. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
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Shalom!
~Joe

God created us with brains, not hard drives. He has also given us "The MIND of Christ", not a jump drive. True revelation, free thinking, intuition and perception are clouded whenever we choose to take man's word for something without proper analysis, sincere questioning, personal study, and the true witness of the Holy Spirit and the Word. I will also contend that many in the Western Church have been brainwashed into believing that institutional regurgitation is more trustworthy and readily accessible than Divine Revelation...which is discovered through personal relationship, personal study, and free thinking.

Just because you have heard something incessantly repeated throughout your lifetime doesn't make it true, nor does it prove that there isn't a more excellent way and a deeper understanding to be obtained.

Are you able to intelligently discuss the "What We Believe" page on your church's website; while providing strong, true, Biblical substantiation? Did you have to believe "What We Believe" in order to join the "church family"? Is "What we Believe" perfection? What if you "stumble upon" something Biblically more than "What We Believe"? What then? What does it mean when the church up the road's "What We Believe" page is longer than yours? If "What they Believe" is from God and can be substantiated through the Scriptures, why wouldn't you and your church want to believe that too?

How can we be calling out "secular" colleges and universities for indoctrinating and brainwashing young minds while many in "Christendom" place greater value on the incomplete revelation of dead Theologians and Denominational "Founders" than the Bible, The Holy Spirit, His ability to reveal Himself to modern-day people, and the God-given wisdom of our contemporaries? His Word is PERFECT, while our understanding of His Word isn't quite there yet...and can't be found by digging up the corpses of our favorite, historical Theologians (Many of whom were deemed "heretics" according to the "What We Believe" pages of their contemporaries). It is wise to ponder and build upon their writings which are in alignment with God's Word, but foolish to place their words on the same plane as the Bible and the Holy Spirit's ability to reveal Christ in and through us!  That's ancestor worship!

Now, take a deep breath and ask yourself, "Is 'What We Believe' all that I truly believe and am allowed to believe?".
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Shalom!
~Joe

Christ is my Life! The truest definition of who I am can only be found in Him! I am not a knock-off or a carbon copy of Christ!  I am ONE WITH and IN HIM Who is the ORIGINAL! I am not just a number or another brick in the wall. I am an unfolding, unique, special, beautiful, matchless, spiritual, intellectual, and physical representation and revelation of a dimension of His Likeness and Image! I am ONE with and in Him Who is the Brightness of ...Father's Glory and the express Image of His Person, the One in Whom all things consist and are upheld! I am a part of His Body, which is the fullness of Him Who fills all in all! To truly define me, you must look to Him!

Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Shalom!
~Joe