There Are Many Paths Toward Salvation In the Path Jesus Left Behind

 

https://fb.watch/v/38HSmUpR9/

 

Welcome to Covenant of Hope Ministries and our Sunday sermon. I am Rev. Laura A. Neff. Our ministry shares Unconditional Love through the Word of God, the Spirit of Christ Jesus. We wish only that God’s truth will be shared within His words as brought to us by the Spirit as it fills my heart, mind, and soul to be shared with my hands, but with His words alone.

You will find us in the following location: http://www.covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com

 Rev. Laura’s other sites: Facebook & Blogspot & Twitter & LinkedIn

 

Prayer List: We have many on our prayer list. Some wish to remain anonymous, and others only wish to have their first names mentioned. Our prayer list grows or changes every week. This is our current list.

- Please continue to pray for Elder Cal Jennings and his health issues, which are numerous. He has been having issues with his pain, vision, and memory. Add to the prayers with a need for new housing as the family is in dire straits there at this point in time.

- A friend named Mary has sent in several prayer requests for friends and family who have passed away or had relatives do so.

- We are ever watchful in regard to the weather with tropical weather and with the high winds around many places. We continue to pray for those who suffer or have suffered from the COVID-19 chaos. Let us pray for calm skies and seas, calm voices and spirits, and also healthy outcomes for those who are affected.

- Pray for those who have been lost in the building collapse in Miami, Florida as the group changes pace with a recovery effort in place of a rescue, pray also for those who have been working so hard to find the lost in that disaster.

- Pray for those people and places suffering record heat and other weather related dangers around this world.

- Pray for my family members who are traveling toward my end of this country for my brother’s wedding this week. With that, pray for a blessed and beautiful wedding for my brother Scott and his bride Theresa.

- Be thankful for each day we live as we do not know what tomorrow brings.

- Pray for all of our outreach ministries with Pastor Stephen Okoth, Pastor Robert Nganwa, Pastor Simon Peter Javaji, Rev. Lisa Tyler, and all the others who have joined us.

- Pray for our nations that the voice of God be heard through the Spirit.

- Pray for our friends and families that their tomorrows bring blessings and pray our own be the same.

- Pray for those who are jobless, homeless, no matter what might have ended up causing either of those. Pray that providence would find them and ease the suffering.

- Pray for those suffering as a result of the terrors that have occurred just this past week around this world.

- Pray for our sick and wounded that they may heal.

- Pray that truth is revealed where falsehoods have been shared around this world.

We send a belated Happy Birthday to our own Theresa Bogard. Her birthday was yesterday. 

 

Prayer: Father in heaven, this is our prayer for today. We continue to pray for the ones suffering as a result of shootings and unrest around this world. We pray that truth can be seen where too many lies have filled life as we know it. We pray for the ability to work in society and gain confidence as a result. We pray for the travelers around this world. We pray for the medical scientists, and physicians who battle on the front lines of the COVID-19 virus and all the other terrible diseases in this world. For each of these we pray in Your Holy Name, through our Savior Jesus Christ, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, Amen and so it shall be.

 

Opening Song: Steven Curtis Chapman ~ The Walk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op7npmUr54M

 

Sermon: We continue to explore Peter’s first epistle today. Last week we explored how to have faith, how to believe in that faith, and to share it with others around us. Here is where we start today. 

 

1 Peter 1:14 KJV – As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:

 

It is never easy to stay on the straight and narrow. God knows this. If we have paid attention to our own faults, we’ll understand why we have to always confess our sin and manage penance for those sins. No one is perfect unless it is the LORD. We are only perfect through the Savior Jesus Christ, because, with Him we are free of the chains that bound us to sin. That’s proven to be a challenge, as the twelve Apostles often preached on this very subject. Here Peter refers to Paul’s experience. 

 

Romans 12:2 KJV – Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

 

Now, in Sunday school, especially a very thorough Sunday school or Vacation Bible school lessons almost always had this verse as shared by Paul. It’s one that we often have to revisit because we are human beings and we, despite our best efforts, will fall off the path or wander far from that same path, when not paying attention to our words, our actions, our thoughts. This is what is shared here to those who lived in Ephesus. 

 

Ephesians 4:18 KJV – They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.

 

This shares that those who have forgotten the reason to stick to the path of righteousness will be the ones on the outside looking in, wanting to join the party but without an invitation. The thing is, God and Jesus provided us a key toward getting through that gate, that unconditional gift of love, so long as we remember our Heavenly Father and the ultimate sacrifice our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ managed just for us. That’s where we see Peter sharing this thought.

 

1 Peter 1:15 KJV – But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;

 

You will hear in Scripture the words putting on the new man, wearing the clothes of righteousness, gird ourselves with the armor of God. What does it mean to gird ourselves with the armor of God? It means to reinforce our faith, our belief. This is what we should all be doing always. The only way to do that is to pay attention to our actions, our reactions, our thoughts and our words. If they are meant to hurt others, no matter how minor that might be, we are missing the path. No, God and Jesus don’t expect us to be so perfect there’s not going to be entertainment in this world, an errant thought that crosses someone’s mind, or a slip of the tongue at the wrong moment. That’s why the Word became Man and ensured salvation. This is our path as shared in prophecy. 

 

Isaiah 35:8 KJV – And there will be a highway called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not travel it—only those who walk in the Way—and fools will not stray onto it.

 

All of us take different paths toward full righteousness. We all have gotten off the path and have sought new ways to get back onto that right way. God promised Adam and Eve that there would be salvation to get fully back to God’s grace. It might have taken a long time, but Jesus came to this world to show us the true path. Clean spirits bring us that much closer to eternal life. That’s what is shared here by Paul in Corinth and Thessaly.

 

2 Corinthians 7:1 KJV – Therefore, beloved, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that defiles body and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

 

1 Thessalonians 4:7 KJV – For God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness.     

                         

We often will visit Scripture we thoroughly explore, and there’s a reason for that. When we do, we can apply the Word in more ways than we would ever have thought. This is why we go back to our study of Jesus’s brother, James. 

 

James 3:13 KJV – Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good conduct, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.

 

Notice, wise and understanding equates to good conduct, good and humble deeds, all of which come from wisdom, which is study combined with action and reaction. John the Beloved shares the same sentiment in this next verse.

 

1 John 3:3 KJV – And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.

 

Hoping in the Lord, in the promise of eternal life and a home in heaven. Humility takes practice. It also takes practice to be a true Christian. Practice what we preach, teach, share, because we never have to stop learning. Peter wants everyone to understand that trusting God, having faith in God, takes as much practice as it would to learn a new skill, a new language, a new subject in school, a trade for your future. It should be a daily practice with prayer, with the Word, and with others who are willing to share with you in that study, in those prayers, and that daily walk that can be as long or as short as we need it to be. Now we see why it’s so important as Peter shares here.

 

1 Peter 1:16-17 KJV – Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:

 

What does fear mean here? It doesn’t mean cower in the corner and hide. In this context, fear means to pay respect to the challenge we each have individually and together to reach past all the earthly desires, troubles, trials, pain and sorrow. We must do so to find the righteousness that God knows each of us has an ability to gain. We go back to the Old Testament to catch the inkling of God’s gentle prodding for us to listen, hear, learn, and affirm every day.

 

Leviticus 11:44-45 KJV – For I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves by any creature that crawls along the ground.
For I am the LORD, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt so that I would be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.

Leviticus 19:2 KJV – “Speak to the whole congregation of Israel and tell them: Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.

Leviticus 20:7 KJV – Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, because I am the LORD your God.

 

In order for us to move forward on occasion, it means revisiting the past. That’s why we go back and forth, repeating, and researching the Word. There are many paths toward salvation in the path Jesus left behind. It is the one way we not only can ensure we are learning something new every day, but we also can share that experience with others around us, thus fulfilling the plans of God and Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Now, that’s something to think about as we pray in the prayer that Jesus taught us.

Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13)

Closing Song: Alan Jackson ~ In the Garden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aIhta9exts

 

 

~ Shalom ~

Rev. Laura A. Neff

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Elder Calvin Jennings

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Covenant of Hope Ministries Main Site: http://www.covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com

Scripture Excerpts: The New Open Bible Study Edition: Copyright © 1990: Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc.

Scripture Excerpts: Holy Bible: Copyright © 1982: E. E. Gaddy and Associates, Inc.

Scripture Excerpts: Holy Bible: Copyright ©circa 1890-1910: International Bible Press, The John C. Winston Co.; Philadelphia, PA, USA

Sermon or Study Copyright © 2021 http://www.covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com

Our mission for Covenant of Hope Ministries is not to exploit fear, but to conquer it, and overcome all that is created through fear together as the bringers of the light of Jesus found in the midst of darkness.