The High Art of Persistence is FAITHFULNESS

In John 14:6-7 NLT says, “6 Jesus told him, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through Me. 7 If you had really known Me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him!”

In John 3:16-17 NLT says, “16 “For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him.”

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Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples,

Pastor Elias Aguilar Busuego Jr PhD DTM

Founding Pastor – Home Fellowship Churches – https://homefellowshipchurches.org

trinityblessings@homefellowshipchurches.org is inviting you to scheduled Zoom meetings.

The Fruit of the HOLY SPIRIT

Podcast Episode: The Fruit of the HOLY SPIRIT – FAITHFULNESS #6

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: LOVE, JOY, PEACE, PATIENCE, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS, AND SELF-CONTROL. There is no law against these things.” [Galatians 5:22-23 NLT]

We need to understand that love is the first characteristic of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is well placed at the head of the list, for it permeates all the rest of the attributes. Somehow, if we live a life of love, the other virtues will attend us all the days of our lives. Love is the key that unlocks the entire fruit basket of Galatians 5:22-23, as well as permeating in the LOVE Chapter of the book in the Bible – New Testament – 1 Corinthians 13.

The Grand Distinction of True Christianity

In Psalm 15:1-5 NLT says, “1 Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on Your holy hill? 2 Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts. 3 Those who refuse to gossip or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends. 4 Those who despise flagrant sinners, and honor the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises even when it hurts. 5 Those who lend money without charging interest,
and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever.

God calls His people to be morally upright, and, in this Psalm, He gives us 10 standards to determine how we are doing. We live among evil people whose standards and morals are eroding. Our standards for living should not come from our evil society but from God. For other references where righteous conduct is summarized, see Isaiah 33:15; 56:1; Micah 6:8; Habakkuk 2:4; and Mark 12:29-31.

In Psalm Chapter 15 Verses 3-4 describe that the words are powerful, and how we use them reflect on our relationship with God. Perhaps nothing so identifies Christians as their ability to control their speech – speaking the truth, refusing to slander, and keeping oaths (promises). Let’s watch what we say. (See James 3:1-12 for more on the importance of controlling our tongue.)

Faithfulness is one of the greatest of all virtues. For to believe much but not be faithful brings life at last to nothing. Further, faithfulness begets a hunger to have, not just the blessings of God, but God Himself. Faithfulness will not be satisfied until it sees at close range the God it cannot quit dreaming about.

This is the grand distinction between true Christianity and any one of its many counterfeits. True Christians hunger, nor for evidences of the presence, but for the presence itself. True Christianity hungers, not even for the blessings of God, but for God. Faithfulness is the unswerving pursuit of the presence of God. Amen!

Jotham Rules in Judah

In 2 Chronicles 27:1-6 NLT says, “1 Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. His mother was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok. 2 Jotham did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight. He did everything his father, Uzziah, had done, except that Jotham did not sin by entering the Temple of the Lord. But the people continued in their corrupt ways. 3 Jotham rebuilt the upper gate of the Temple of the Lord. He also did extensive rebuilding on the wall at the hill of Ophel. 4 He built towns in the hill country of Judah and constructed fortresses and towers in the wooded areas. 5 Jotham went to war against the Ammonites and conquered them. Over the next three years he received from them an annual tribute of 7,500 pounds of silver, 50,000 bushels of wheat, and 50,000 bushels of barley. 6 King Jotham became powerful because he was careful to live in obedience to the Lord his God”.

Jotham was generally a good king (2 Chronicles 27:6), but his people became corrupt. Those we lead will not always follow our example, but that should not affect the way we live for God. This sinfulness of Jotham’s kingdom is vividly portrayed in Isaiah 1–5.

What if you were a king or queen of a country – how would you rule? Would you live a life of ease without a care of others? Or would you try to make your country better for all those living there? Jotham was a young king faced with this decision, and he chose to be faithful to God and base his rulings on what God would have him do. His faithfulness brought him God’s blessings and showed him God’s purpose for his life.

Jotham grew powerful because he walked steadfastly before the LORD his God. He was steadfast and persistent, and his unswerving faithfulness brought powerful influence to the throne of Judah.

It is what we are not told about Jotham that may most fascinate us. What had happened in Jotham’s life to break his spirit and teach him his persistent dependency upon God? It can hardly be doubted that somewhere in the unrecorded tears of his life, he had learned the lessons of brokenness, dependency, and trust. The beauty of broken pride is that it is a gift we lay on the highest level of God’s altars. The gift comes wrapped in our bandages and slings. It is saturated with a handkerchief once filled with our tears. When we grow mature enough to admit and applaud our brokenness, we will know our purpose in life. Amen!

Job Hope in The Lord’s Great Love and His Faithfulness

In Job 13:15 NLT says, “God might kill me, but I have no other hope. I am going to argue my case with Him.”

Job compared his three friends to doctors who did not know what they were doing. They were like eye surgeons trying to perform open-heart surgery. Many of their ideas about God were true, but they did not apply to Job’s situation. They were right to say that God is just. They were right to say God punishes sin. But they were wrong to assume that Job’s suffering was a just punishment for his sin. They took a true principle and applied it wrongly, ignoring the vast differences in human circumstances. We must be careful and compassionate in how we apply biblical condemnations to others; we must be slow to judge.

Job said, “Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him.” Job made persistence such a high agenda that not even death would end his constant struggle to be with God. He would trust and live or trust and die. And even if God were to become homicidal and Job was his first victim, Job would never stop pursuing his Lover. So, ought we to pursue our Lord Jesus Christ until the union we seek from Him is ours for eternity.

Could it be that our own faithfulness is a response to the faithfulness of God? Consider the Words of this well-known passage:

“Because of the LORD’s great love, we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)

If our persistence needs a role model, God’s own persistent faithfulness will certainly supply it. Job understood this. When we think about the compassion of God in offering His own Son as a sacrifice for our sins, we had better understand true faithfulness. Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered for us. How could we ever question God’s steadfast love when our circumstances look grim, bleak, harsh, severe, forbidding, or depressing?

Faithfulness involves developing the habit of hanging around God, not so that we’ll have less suffering, but so that in the clear light of our nearness to God, we will better see what our suffering means and what our faithfulness should produce.

God has been faithful. He will be faithful. Our Lord Jesus Christ His Son was faithful to the point of death. Our relationship with God is guaranteed by our Lord Jesus Christ’s constancy, loyalty, fidelity, dependability, reliability, steadiness, firmness, consistency, steadfastness, endurance and faithfulness… Amen! Praise God! Hallelujah!

   

Teaching About Prayer and the Aspects of Prayer

In Luke 11:5-8 NLT says, “Jesus said, “5 Then, teaching them more about prayer, He used this story: “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, 6 ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ 7 And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ 8 But I tell you this – though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence”.

These verses focus on three aspects of prayer: its content (Luke 11:2-4), our persistence (Luke 11:5-10), and God’s faithfulness (Luke 11:11-13).

In Luke Chapter 11 Verses 1-4 describe and take notice the order in this prayer. First, our Lord Jesus Christ praised God; then He made His requests. Praising God first puts us in the right frame of mind to tell Him about our needs. Too often our prayers are more like shopping lists than conversations.

In Luke Chapter 11 Verse 8 describes persistence, or boldness, in prayer overcomes our insensitivity, not God’s. To practice persistence does more to change our heart and mind than His, and it helps us understand and express the intensity of our need. Persistence in prayer helps us recognize God’s work.

When we bring the needs of others before God, our persistence takes on new meaning. Now, more is at stake than our own wants and desires – we are ministering to others through our prayers for them. Nothing is more beautiful than the prayer warrior who is persistent on behalf of someone else’s need.

This parable between the Requisitioner and Groggy Neighbor illustrates the high art of persistence and its efficacy in prayer. Praying faithfully is our willingness to go boldly before the throne and ask what we want and/or need from God. And then in faithfulness we will do it again and again.

Boldness is the key in faithful petitioning. I became very demanding with God when my wife Christie became ill more than 24 years ago (she had rheumatic heart disease and died for few minutes). “Please give me back my wife!” I shouted and cried in my prayer. If some of you were there, you might have rebuked me for irreverence, but I insisted that the Master told us to claim boldly the desires of our hearts. Now, we have four grown up children (38-30 years old, 3 gentlemen, and 1 beautiful woman) and God is using them mightily in different ministries for His glory. We are so proud of them. All glory to God. Amen!

Parable of the Persistent Widow

In Luke 18:1-8 NLT says “1 One day Jesus told His disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. 2 “There was a judge in a certain city,” He said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. 3 A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ 4 The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, 5 but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’” 6 Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. 7 Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So, don’t you think God will surely give justice to His chosen people who cry out to Him day and night? Will He keep putting them off? 8 I tell you; He will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will He find on the earth who have faith?”

To persist in prayer and not give up does not mean endless repetition or painfully long prayer sessions. Constant prayer means keeping our requests continually before God as we live for Him day by day, believing He will answer. When we live by faith, we are not to give up. God may delay answering, but His delays always have good reasons. As we persist in prayer, we grow in character, faith, and hope. Amen!

Widows and orphans were among the most vulnerable of all God’s people, and both Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles insisted that these needy people be properly cared for. See, for example, Exodus 22:22-24; Isaiah 1:17; 1 Timothy 5:3; James 1:27.

In Luke Chapter 18 Verses 6-7 describe that if godless judges respond to constant pressure, how much more will a great and loving God respond to us. If we know He loves us, we can believe He will hear our cries for help.

Would you have persistent faithfulness defined? Ask and ask and ask and ask and ask; never stop asking until the answer is given, and then go back and ask for more. Seek God until you find Him. Knock until He opens. Keep on keeping on until you reach the Keeper. Persist until you have said a thousand times, “God here I am,” and you hear all the Angels say, “Not you again.” LOL!

One of the prayer outlines many are taught to use when they first learn to pray is the ACTS model. This model consists of four parts: Adoration, Contrition (Repentance), Thanksgiving and Supplication (Request). But in the parable in this passage, our Lord Jesus Christ adds to our outlines the word Persistence. It doesn’t fit the ACTS acrostic, but persistence indicates the seriousness with which we are to do the work of prayer. Amen!

Persistence is intentionality. It is desire. It wants from God. It hungers for God. It will not rest until God supplies all that it asks for.

So, our Lord Jesus Christ tells a parable about a poor widow who persistently pesters (bothers, annoys, harasses, disturbs) a judge. But it is not mere pestering that defines this widow. She is desperate, and it is her desperation that keeps her coming back to the judge. She knows he is the only one who can help her, and she will not cease (stop, finish, end) until she has her way. The judge honors her persistence.

In the same way, God also honors persistence in us. He answers those who keep to their agendas, those who will not stop turning to Him for fulfillment.

When our persistency in prayer is defined by our desperation to know God, we are assured that we shall hear from heaven and know God’s presence. Amen!

Now, let’s talk about “Prayer and “Salvation”.

Prayer is the key that unlocks and reveals faith. Effective prayer needs both an attitude of complete dependence and the action of asking. Prayer demonstrates complete reliance on God. Thus, there is no substitute for prayer, especially in situations that seem impossible.

So, let our hearts and minds in tune with God, in the power of God, the Holy Spirit. Let’s continuously and persistently pray for God’s perfect will be done. We as Born-Again Christians have been tried and cleansed, we have moved freely into a relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ that is more powerful than it was before our trials. We are at home in the presence and fellowship of God, for we are heirs with our Lord Jesus Christ, more like Him that we could ever have dreamed possible. So, let’s continuously and persistently pray for God’s perfect will be done. Amen!

The principle is that no one has anything of value to bring to God in order to deserve salvation, mercy, justification, or even a second glance from God. The proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored. Acceptance before God cannot be achieved by good deeds, piety, or any amount of self-proclaimed righteousness.

Let’s never get over the effect of God’s saving transformation on people’s lives. People who were lost in sin, filled with anger and bitterness, give up their hatred and become approachable as we have studied and learned last time. That is, of course, why we minister to others. Those of us who minister are not people to whom (fruit of the Holy Spirit) love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control comes naturally. We are people who have been remodeled by grace. We thankfully leave our old natures far behind as we embrace the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, the first of the list > agape love of God, and in our treatment of others. Amen!

Sunday by Sunday as we come to worship, let me encourage our brothers – and sisters-in-Christ, and I want my readers and listeners to be both strong in the faith and sensitive to others’ needs. Because all, we as Born-Again Christian believers are strong in certain areas and weak in others. We constantly need to monitor the effects of our behavior on others.

In these FAITHFULLNESS Series of Podcast, we learned the following PURPOSES of this fruit of the HOLY SPIRIT:

• To Receive God’s Blessings
• Get a Habit of Spiritual Dependency
• To Have a Persistent Commitment to the Right
• No Compromise
• The Road That Ends in Victory
• High Art of Persistence

Next week, we are going to start the Podcast/Message about the fruit of the Holy Spirit: GENTLENESS

On every Podcast, I always have three (3) questions we can answer from only these two (2) Sources: The Bible and the Guidance of the Holy Spirit. The following are:

First is about our > Observation: What do these passages or Scriptures say to you?

Second is about our own > Interpretation: What do these passages or Scriptures mean to you?

Third is about how we can apply > Application: How do the meaning of these passages or Scriptures apply to you or to your situation?

If you are not sure that you are Born-Again Christian believer or you have relatives, loved ones, friends, neighbors, and people in your circle of influence, please take a look and/or guide them to one of our ministries, “An Invitation to Meet Our Lord Jesus Christ” at https://homefellowshipchurches.org/an-invitation-to-meet-our-lord-jesus-christ/

Let’s give an opportunity for the lost souls to experience on being Born-Again Christian as explained by our Lord Jesus Christ in the book of John 3 in the New Testament of the Bible.

It is as simple as A, B, & C > Admit, Believe, & Confess. All Born-Again Christian believers prayed this simple prayer, we called “Sinner’s Prayer”

“Father God, I come to you in the name of Jesus Christ. I acknowledge and admit that I am a sinner and I need a Savior. I believe and have faith in Jesus Christ who was born of Virgin Mary, died on the Cross for the penalty of my sins, and rose again that I may have the eternal life. I confess and declare Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and Lord of my life. Please comfort, guide, and help me Holy Spirit to live and grow in my spiritual life according to Your Words, purpose, and perfect will of God, in my Lord Jesus Christ name, Amen!”

If you prayed this, “Sinner’s Prayer” sincerely in your heart, you are Born-Again Christian believer. However, you are a spiritual baby who needs to grow up. (See 1 Peter 2:2). You need to find a church or fellowship to grow spiritually. We are glad to establish or bring the fellowship to your own home if it is safer by appointment.

Now, let me pray for all of you:

Father God, we come into your presence in our Lord Jesus Christ name, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ for Your agape love and forgiveness you have done on the Cross of Calvary, and continue to intercede for us in prayer. Thank you, Holy Spirit as our Helper and Comforter. Thank you for the wisdom, knowledge, understanding, courage and strength. We cling, yield, plug-in and tune-in to you Holy Spirit to help us understand God’s Words, obey them, receive Your divine revelation, know the Truth that sets us free, and apply them in our lives, in our Lord Jesus Christ name, Amen!”

Let’s praise and worship God in Spirit and in Truth. Give all thanks to God for all answered prayers.

Please send your > Praise Reports (answered prayers) and New Prayer Requests via email to: trinityblessings@homefellowshipchurches.org. God bless you all and our families!

A Message to be Blessed:

A Call to Repentance and Be Blessed

In Malachi 3:7-15 AMPC says, “7 Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?’ 8 “Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me! “But you ask, ‘What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you?’ “You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me. 9 You are under a curse, for your whole nation has been cheating me. 10 Bring all the tithes (the whole tenth of your income) into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and prove Me now by it”, says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” [Malachi 2:2.] 11 “And I will rebuke the devourer (insects and plagues) for your sakes and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine drop its fruits before the time in the field,” says the Lord of hosts. 12 “And all nations shall call you happy and blessed, for you shall be a land of delight”, says the Lord of hosts.

If the people would obey God, giving as they should, God would flood His people with blessings. There would be an overabundance of God’s blessing if He was given what He requested.

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse – See 2 Chronicles 31:11; cf. 1 Chronicles 26:20; Nehemiah 10:38; 13:5, 12. If the temple storehouses were empty, it was the people’s fault. God had already blessed them with enough to give a little back to Him.

Instead of destroying our crops (blessings), God would make them come in greater abundance than we had ever imagined possible (Amos 4:9; Haggai 2:19; Zechariah 8:12). The devourer – probably referring to locusts, though the word here is general in meaning (Baldwin). In the Near East, locust swarms are known for their ability to damage huge tracts of agricultural land (see note on Joel 1:4).

A delightsome land – All of the blessings promised to Jacob would come to pass if the people would obey God (Deuteronomy 33:29; Zechariah 8:13). Their land would be a delight to all who saw it (Daniel 8:9).

The problem in Malachi 3:7-12 was the people’s departure from God as reflected by their neglect of tithes and offerings. Two annual tithes were required according to Israelite law – one for the Levites (Leviticus 27:30; Numbers 18:21), and one to be used in worship at the annual feasts in Jerusalem (Deuteronomy 14:22). A tithe was required every three years to provide for the needs of the poor (Deuteronomy 14:28-29). There is debate as to whether this tithe for the poor was in addition to or served as a substitute for the tithe used in worship.

The New Testament pattern for tithing is proportionate giving – a person is to give “in relation to what you have earned” (1 Corinthians 16:2). Certainly a tithe should be given proportionate to one’s wealth, but not all proportionate giving is a tithe.

The anticipation of blessing for obedience to God’s command to tithe was based on the Mosaic covenant, which promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience (Malachi 3:10; cf. Deuteronomy 28:15-68). Generally, God will meet the needs of His own people (Psalm 34:9-10; Philippians 4:19), but that is not an unconditional guarantee. There certainly were and are exceptions. Yet, where God chooses not to provide physically, He gives sufficient grace to go without (2 Corinthians 12:9).

The problem in Malachi 3:14-15 was that the people were guilty of arrogant words against God. They were saying, “There is no prophet who is serving God,” and “God is not concerned about justice.” God responded by showing that He did distinguish between the wicked and the righteous. The righteous would be blessed, and the wicked would be judged.

A Call to – Make A Difference – Generous Giving

In 2 Corinthians 8:1-15 NLT says, “1 Now I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, what God in His kindness has done through the churches in Macedonia. 2 They are being tested by many troubles, and they are very poor. But they are also filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity. 3 For I can testify that they gave not only what they could afford, but far more. And they did it of their own free will. 4 They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in Jerusalem. 5 They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do. 6 So we have urged Titus, who encouraged your giving in the first place, to return to you and encourage you to finish this ministry of giving. 7 Since you excel in so many ways – in your faith, your gifted speakers, your knowledge, your enthusiasm, and your love from us – I want you to excel also in this gracious act of giving. 8 I am not commanding you to do this. But I am testing how genuine your love is by comparing it with the eagerness of the other churches. 9 You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich. 10 Here is my advice: It would be good for you to finish what you started a year ago. Last year you were the first who wanted to give, and you were the first to begin doing it. 11 Now you should finish what you started. Let the eagerness you showed in the beginning be matched now by your giving. Give in proportion to what you have. 12 Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly. And give according to what you have, not what you don’t have. 13 Of course, I don’t mean your giving should make life easy for others and hard for yourselves. I only mean that there should be some equality. 14 Right now you have plenty and can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal. 15 As the Scriptures say, “Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough.”.

Paul, writing from Macedonia, hoped that news of the generosity of these churches would encourage the Corinthian believers and motivate them to solve their problems and unite in fellowship.

During his third missionary journey, Paul had collected money for the impoverished believers in Jerusalem. The churches in Macedonia – Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea – had given money even though they were poor, and they had sacrificially given more than Paul expected. Although they were poor themselves, they wanted to help. The amount we give is not as important as why and how we give. God does not want us to give grudgingly. Instead, He wants us to give as these churches did – out of dedication to our Lord Jesus Christ, love for fellow believers, the joy of helping those in need, as well as the fact that it was simply the good and right thing to do. How well does your giving measure up to the standards set by the Macedonian churches?

The Kingdom of God spreads through believers’ concern and eagerness to help others. Here we see several churches joining to help others beyond their own circle of friends and their own city. Let’s explore ways that we might link up with a ministry outside our city, either through your church/fellowship or through a Born-Again Christian organization such as Convoy of Hope – The Bridge Church -Hutto, Texas (My adopted local home church). By joining with other believers to do God’s work, we increase Christian unity and help the Kingdom grow. Amen!

The Corinthian believers excelled in everything – they had faith, gifted speakers, knowledge, enthusiasm, and love. Paul wanted them to also be leaders in giving. Giving is a natural response of love. Paul did not order the Corinthians to give, but he encouraged them to prove that their love was real. When we love someone, we want to give that person our time and attention and provide for his or her needs. If we refuse to help, our love is not as genuine as we say.

There is no evidence that our Lord Jesus Christ was any poorer than most first-century Palestinians; rather, our Lord Jesus Christ became poor by giving up His rights as God and becoming human. In His incarnation, God voluntarily became man – the person Jesus of Nazareth. As a man, our Lord Jesus Christ was subject to place, time, and other human limitations. He did not give up His eternal power when He became human, but He did set aside His glory and His rights (see Philippians 2:5-7). In response to the Father’s will, He limited His power and knowledge. Our Lord Jesus Christ became “poor” when He became human because He set aside so much. Yet by doing so, He made us “rich” because we received salvation and eternal life.
What made our Lord Jesus Christ’s humanity unique was His freedom from sin. In our Lord Jesus Christ, we can see every attribute of God’s character. The Incarnation is explained further in these Bible passages: John 1:1-14; Romans 1:2-5; Philippians 2:6-11; 1 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 1:1-3.

The Christians in the Corinthian church had money, and apparently, they had planned to collect money for the Jerusalem church a year previously (see also 2 Corinthians 9:2). Paul challenges them to act on their plans.

Four principles of giving emerge here: (1) Our willingness to give enthusiastically is more important than the amount we give; (2) We should strive to fulfill our financial commitments; (3) If we give to others in need, they will, in turn, help us when we are in need; (4) We should give as a response to our Lord Jesus Christ, not for anything we can get out of it. How we give reflects our devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!