Introduction
December 2024
Are you feeling down? Be encouraged with promises and hope straight from God's Word!
2 Timothy 3:16 Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness,
God Himself says that the whole Word of God is suitable for this!
Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path.
What a wonderful picture! God's Word gives light and clarity on our path!
Encouragements from God's Word
John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
1 Peter 2:2 as newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby,
When we are born again by the Holy Spirit, we are newborn children! And what do children need? Milk! Below are various passages from God's Word to encourage us and renew our thinking!
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
We are a new creation! All the old has passed away! We are not patched up, but our new self is made anew! Not by just anyone, but by God the Creator!
Colossians 1:14 in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.
Hebrews 8:12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.
Your new self/new creation is forgiven. Our sins are gone! Forgiven and forgotten by Jesus Christ! God does not think of them anymore.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf.
Colossians 1:27 which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Christ lives in us!
Galatians 2:20a I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
In baptism we are crucified with Christ. I have died. My old self is dead and buried. Christ lives in me! Hallelujah!
Galatians 2:20b That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.
The Son of God, Jesus Christ, loves me! What a wonder! He gave Himself up for me!!
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
He has blessed us! With every spiritual blessing. Not maybe, not depending on your works, but it is so!
Romans 1:9 For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the Good News of his Son.
I serve God with my born-again spirit! It is perfect, without sin!
Romans 8:29 For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,
Our destiny is to become like Christ! To be conformed to His image!
Galatians 3:26 For you are all children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
We are God's children! Hallelujah! We are one with Christ! Praise God!!
Galatians 5:1 Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don't be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
Remember the freedom of your first love! Stand firm! Do not let yourself be burdened by ANY yoke.
Galatians 5:5 For we, through the Spirit, by faith, wait for the hope of righteousness.
Ephesians 2:1 You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins,
What was made alive? Our born-again spirit!
1 Corinthians 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
Colossians 3:1 If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
Focus on heaven! On Christ who is above!! Medicine against the filthy serpent when he comes to attack you.
1 John 4:10,12-15
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.
By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Saviour of the world.
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God.
Romans 6:3 Or don't you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
A reminder of baptism! It says "all": that means you too!!! Identification/union with the work of Jesus Christ by which we are saved! Both in His death and in His resurrection and life!
Identification with Christ
The 5 steps of identification
1. Crucifixion — Exchange
Jesus on the cross. Our old self crucified.
Romans 6:6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin.
2. Dying
Christ died on the cross. He fulfilled the law of God in His life. As the first man He fulfilled the law. The curse of the law was broken. Through His death — our death — we are legally free from sin!
Romans 6:7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.
3. Burial
The body of our Lord Jesus Christ was buried. Our old self is buried in baptism.
Romans 6:4 We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death,
Colossians 2:12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
4. Raised up
God is rich in mercy!!! God the Father raised Christ up from the dead! Death could not hold Him! Praise God!!
Ephesians 2:4-5 But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved –
5. Birth, rising in a new life
Thus our new self is born. It was dead. Now it is made alive! Rising out of the watery grave.
Romans 6:4b that just like Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
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