Thursday, August 27, 2009

Sons of Bankers, Sons of Lawyers

And a daughter of a fireman.

People say that how you view your father when you are a child is a significant thing. It affects your view of God. If your father is kind, you view God as kind; if your father is vindictive, you view God that way. Whether that is true for every person in every situation, I highly doubt.

It takes a certain kind of personality to be a firefighter. People who are slow to decide; selfish to their own physical needs; do not consider others as important; need not apply for the job. My earthly father is one who is quick to help others; will put himself in harm's way without thinking twice about it; loves others by his actions.

I see God as loving by actively participating in the lives of His creatures; selflessly, willing to help, desiring the best. We see this in Jesus on the cross; being killed by sinful human beings. He prays for those sinners, asking Father for forgiveness for them.

Father, thank you for your image-bearers who remind me of You.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Sanctification and Sanctify


Sanctification

Romans 6:19
I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

Romans 6:22
But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

1 Corinthians 1:30
But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,

1 Thessalonians 4:1
Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more.

1 Thessalonians 4:3
For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;

1 Thessalonians 4:4
that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,

1 Thessalonians 4:7
For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.

2 Thessalonians 2:13
But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.

Hebrews 12:14
Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.

Sanctify


John 17:17
"Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.

John 17:19
"For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

Ephesians 5:25-27
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

1 Thessalonians 5:23
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 9:12-14
and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Hebrews 13:12
Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.

1 Peter 1:1-2
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.

1 Peter 3:14-16
But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed AND DO NOT FEAR THEIR INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.