Children of God

     You may be interested in commentary on Sunday's message - the new covenant and what it means. 

      Yes, people can and should read the Bible. True believers have God's law in their hearts. God's Spirit provides the power for humans to trust and obey, love God and other people. 

     In 2 Corinthians 3 verse 6, "the letter kills." Not the law or written Word of God. It is the demands of the law without the Spirit's life and power to fulfill God's will. With the Holy Spirit, the letter no longer kills. 

     The apostle Paul calls this "the ministry of the Spirit." The Father, Son and Spirit were there at the beginning. While the Son is found in many verses of the Old Testament, He came to life, Son of a virgin. The Holy Spirit also was active, but the shower of fire on 120 believers on Pentecost introduced Him to mankind. And He lives within the hearts of everyone who believes and trusts. All over the world.

     All the benefits in Christ come by the Spirit. He mediates Christ's presence and blessings. "Freedom" in the Bible means freedom from condemnation and slavery of sin and the dominion of Satan. We don't get baptized and return to our former ways. The Spirit enters into our "hearts," and we become children of God...if we truly follow up. 

     Freedom by Christ is not a ticket to cover up evil or justification for conflict. We can experience Christ's nearness. He wants us to be transformed into his likeness, but in this age the transformation is progressive and partial. When Christ returns, we will see him face to face, and our transformation will be complete. 

     1 John 3:2   Revelation 22:4 

     

Tablets of Stone 

   Tablets of Hearts

     "You show that you are a letter from Christ...written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God...not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 

                                     Paul - 2 Corinthians chapter 3 

     "Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant...not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 

     "Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? 

     "We are not like Moses, who put a veil over his face...while the radiance was fading away...for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. 

     "Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."  

                              We shall all appear before Christ

                        to give an account...whether good or bad.

AI wins. Do we lose? 

     This may be the first time ever. The very problem we're having is the problem other Americans are having. 

     Mrs. Donut is trying to cancel a motel stay. All she can reach are recordings. She is determined, but the recordings keep winning. Can't get a human. Can't cancel the credit card she used. 

     While she was frustrated on Thursday, her husband came across an article in The Epoch Times. Maybe you have seen this:

     "Over half internet traffic is from bots. It is hard for businesses to reach customers. The AI flood makes it necessary to find new strategies to connect. Advertising decisions are impossible. 30 to 40% of communications involve non-humans." 

     "A businessman says the flood of AI bots makes his website costs 'real world money.' He is 'wasting' $600 to $700 a month with nothing to show for it. A business owner's website is basically the salesperson."

     "For a small local business, the bot traffic makes it hard to tell what's actually working. A business owner said, 'Our website is where most of our new customers come from. I watch the numbers closely, and a chunk of that traffic is just bots crawling the site. Paying for advertising makes less and less sense when the audience is mostly automated." 

     Also, Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro issued an executive order to slow the growth of Ai data centers. 

     This country survived wars and other mischief, but AI will never go away. Think I'll see if "bot" is in the dictionary. 

                Jimmy

Okay. We searched the internet and found bots. Positives and negatives. 

Our Heavenly Home 

My wife had an intelligent sister who wouldn't believe. For 20 years she prayed for her. Then when no family members were expecting it, sister gave herself to Christ. Her husband, an electrical engineer, did likewise. He went somewhere over a weekend, without food, and prayed for God's will. He was to become a pastor. With lower income. He phoned his wife to tell her. She said, "I know. He told me."  

They are in heaven, and we have his Bible for morning devotions. He used a yellow marker - very unusual - to box in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10. Here is part of it:

     "Now we know that if the earthly tent we love is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. For while we are in this tent, we groan...because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling...

     "Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 

     "We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So, we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 

     "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad." 

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If strong willed adults can surrender to God, faith over income,  so can we. 

 The Sanctuary Movement

   Part 2 

     "Not only does the sanctuary movement incentivize illegal immigration, it also shields violent predators from justice. The author illustrated the deadly reality of sanctuary policies, complete with names of several victims and those who assaulted them by rape, murder, kidnap, assault, strangling, even dismemberment.  

     "Sanctuary policies create incentives for foreigners, including violent criminals, to enter the U.S. and hide behind a taxpayer-funded cloak of invisibility. This system corrupts the purpose of the original cities of refuge as described in the Bible. 

     "Those cities were intended to provide a balance between instant justice and mercy, by creating space between those responsible for death, possibly unintentional, and those left to suffer its consequences. They were never intended to give quarter to unrepentant lawbreakers.

     "Sanctuary policies erase our borders, erode our culture, annul federal laws designed to protect us, and lead directly to needless death. They are an abomination and no just nation should tolerate them."

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PS. Yes, our southern border is closed. There are other ways to slip in, and the Biden millions are already here. 31 non-profits support illegal immigrants. Sanctuary types oppose ICE. How many immigrants are welcomed by employers who get them secretly on the cheap? How many children are hostages?   

 The Sanctuary Movement

     "Sanctuary once meant a holy place, or a place of refuge. 

     "The American sanctuary movement rewards criminality and endangers innocent citizens. Its history began in 1971 in Berkeley, California, when officials declared Berkeley a "City of Refuge" for draft dodgers. President Nixon was winding down the war in Vietnam. In 1985 the city passed a resolution obligating city "employes not to violate established sanctuaries," etc. 

Sean Davis, CEO The Federalist

     "These actions violated U.S. immigration law. War refugees seeking escape could be safe in Mexico, Venezuela or Columbia. They did not qualify for asylum here.

     "2021. The Biden administration threw federal immigration laws out the window. It federalized sanctuary city efforts, erasing the border and inviting anyone into the U.S. Migrants arrived, often with the aid of drug-cartel coyotes. Coached by lawyers from non-government organizations, they made claim, then released into the U.S. on their own, to appear in court years later. Ho hum.

     "What started as care for refugees in one city, became a global industry involving national governments, criminal syndicates and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars a year. Every institution involved had a political or economic incentive to ensure a flow of migrants into the U.S. The immigration-industrial complex became a self-perpetuating machine. 

     "The second Trump administration reestablished secure borders and has attempted to begin deporting those who entered illegally. But efforts have been opposed at every turn, often violent, even when deporting the most dangerous illegal immigrants. Much of this involves state and city officials in the sanctuary movement. 

     "The U.S. Department of Justice calculated that 12 states and the District of Columbia - nearly a quarter of the country - had become sanctuaries. Albuquerque, Boston, New Orleans, Newark and Philadelphia have been designated as sanctuary cities. Cities and counties across the country - more than 200."

Continued tomorrow

 

Legal Battle - Two Victories

     Jack Phillips is a Colorado baker who fought his case to the U.S. Supreme Court...and won. As for his other victory...

     "Phillips was driving home from work in 1979 when he says God came into his car. He felt a presence so strong it was if another person was sitting next to him. 'Everything was good' in his life, he said, 'but when God came into my car...He convicted me of my sin. All the good things I was doing...weren't enough.'"

     "He remembers arguing with God, telling Him he could clean up his life, become a better person, and then become a Christian. But God said, No you can't. Phillips eventually surrendered, and 47 years later he still becomes emotional when he retells the story."

     "His wife Debbie also became a Christian, and their lives immediately changed. They attended church, volunteered in ministry, homeschooled their children, and oriented every aspect of their lives. When they started their own custom cake business, they decided to honor God with it." 

     "Phillips knows his case led to a reinforcement of religious freedom and free speech. He knows that generations of people around the world have followed Christ faithfully without First Amendment protections." 

     "Those things are important," he says. "But they'll be gone sooner or later. They don't matter. What matters is our relationship with Jesus and His desire to have a relationship with us. That's why He made us." 

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