{"id":1233,"date":"2023-09-01T23:44:50","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T23:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2023-09-07T23:46:29","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T23:46:29","slug":"a-child-of-god-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/?p=1233","title":{"rendered":"This Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cBeloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.\u201d\u00a0 1<\/b> John 3:2-3<\/b><\/p>\n

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The Bible makes it clear that all believers are expected to go from being converts to being disciples.\u00a0<\/span>The Bible also acknowledges that everyone doesn’t mature at the same time or pace. It also teaches that all who claim to believe are not true believers: the wheat and the tares will dwell together until Christ returns. So how do we gauge ourselves and grow from spiritual infancy to maturity? What are the determining factors that make us willing to lay down the pleasures of the flesh, take up our cross, and follow the Savior? John makes the connection between hoping in Christ and purifying ourselves. We must first believe, not only that God is real, but that His promises are true and trustworthy. This lays the foundation for placing our hope in Him. The believer who sincerely trusts the Lord with their life and places their hope in Him will see the call to holiness as a blessing to embrace and pursue, not a burden to run from. <\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Lord,
<\/span><\/i>You are altogether trustworthy: the essence of truth and love. Your word does not return void but accomplishes all that you intended for it to do. Thank you for being the author and finisher of my faith. <\/span><\/i>By grace, I stand on your Word and embrace your promises. My every act of obedience is rooted in this hope I have in you.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 Name. Amen.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For further study<\/span><\/span>:
<\/span><\/span>Matthew 28:19-20
<\/span>Matthew 7:21 \/ Matthew 13:30
<\/span>Hebrews 10:23
<\/span>Hebrews 12:2 \/ Hebrews 11:1; 11:6
<\/span>Psalm 119:114 \/ Psalm 130:7
<\/span>Colossians 1:27 \/ Romans 15:13
<\/span>Romans 8:24-25
<\/span>Romans 15:4 \/ Romans 12:12<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cBeloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.\u201d\u00a0 1 John 3:2-3The Bible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"blog","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\"\"\n\n\u201cI am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel\u2014 <\/b> <\/b>which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God\u2019s curse!\u201d Galatians 1:6-7<\/b>\n\nThe Good News is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It\u2019s the truth that sets us free, from both the power and the wages of sin. Because the enemy is the author of lies, he distorts and perverts what God has said and done. False Gospels serve those who\u2019d rather embrace their sin, than repent of it. The theologies behind these fake gospels may use harmless sounding labels like inclusive <\/i>or progressive. <\/i>But anything that leads us to celebrate what God forbids, is not of God, and therefore has no power to redeem. So, we can choose to walk in truth by the Word\u2014or embrace our old nature by the counterfeit. One offers life\u2014the other offers death. But there is no middle ground.\n\nDear Lord, \n<\/i>Please keep us from deception. For in your perfect love, you are neither double-minded, nor swayed by popular opinion: You change not. No one can improve your word or your finished work. By your grace, we can take the narrow path, where our hunger for truth overrides the flesh. In Jesus\u2019 Name. Amen.<\/i>\n\nFor further study:\nMatthew 24:24 \/ 2 Corinthians 11:4\nLuke 17:22-23\n2 Timothy 4:3-4 \/ James 3:1\nMatthew 18:6-7\nGalatians 5:17 \/ Romans 7:18\nJohn 10:27 \/ John 10:4-5\nMatthew 7:13-14","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afterbirth","category-blogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1236,"href":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions\/1236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deborahjeankelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}