A lot of what came to mind in the last video can be applied right here.

Let the words that Kevin says at about two and a half minutes into the video sink in.

“Who you are as a person is a manifestation of God on the earth.”

You never forget that!

And don’t forget when God sees you, he sees Jesus Christ. He does not see your faults or weaknesses though we are genuinely examined at the Bema Seat of Christ to receive or lose rewards. The only reason we make it that far is because the work of the Cross propitiates God. That word means God is satisfied (God’s righteous requirements are meet.) by the work of His Son Jesus Christ in the atonement and sanctification of the individual, of the human race, of those who accept the covenant between the God-man – Jesus and God the Father.

The Good News is so good that it’s hard to believe. This is why people added so many laws and trappings to God’s grace and goodness in the Old Testament and the New.

When the Gospel is truly revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, we add our own minor statutes. It is just a normal psychological response. But if you want to do something good, run that good race, repent, believe, and spread the Gospel. Love and speak good of one another.

Too many of us beat our backs with the proverbial chain trying to correct our wrongs. We need to confess our sins. We need to repent. But we need not add silly little rules such as; a woman should ride in the back seat of a car if the man driving the vehicle is not her husband, and they happen to be alone. This is just our flesh at work. I call it putting faith in the devil instead of Jesus Christ.

Before his revelation of Jesus Christ, Martin Luther used to walk upstairs on his knees. My mother, God rest her soul, though she had intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit when she was a little girl, was trained to kneel while she prayed no matter what would happen to her knees. But all that isn’t necessary. We don’t have to inflict emotional, psychological, or physical pain upon ourselves or our neighbors!

Only in love can we have true repentance and spiritual growth.

Sad to say, but I’ve been in churches where there’s a lot of finger-pointing and misdirected words – idle words and destructive words- about various congregation members. Definitely not coming from the right source.

I heard one pastor speaking on Christian radio several years ago mentioning a young girl who committed suicide. She was attending church. She was singled out, isolated, rejected, and pushed away instead of loved and nurtured. So, the pastor adopted a different method to what should be the Good News.

The suicide had not occurred in his congregation; nonetheless, he directed how his sheep should respond to various situations that occur in people’s lives.

Q. What was your first experience with the Lord? What was that like for you?

Answering this question, I can tell you when I experienced that love of God burning in my soul and heart and mind, it overwhelmed me, and I wept like a baby for five minutes straight in a meeting hall where I had received Jesus. I received immediate words of knowledge. I had to tell everyone else about the good news. Being the geek that I am, I had to figure out all the ins and outs of the Bible. I read the Bible from cover to cover repeatedly, not understanding much of it as you have to have an education and background to grasp it. But, the word was doing its job. I reap the benefit of doing that work to this day.

Q. How can you bring that experience to others through the growth you now have?

A. One thing I always remind myself is that I am truly to be an ambassador for Jesus Christ, that I truly need to let go of all pain and hurts and focus instead on the process of bringing truth to others.

I guess you can say it was a pruning process. I was and still am being fashioned more and more into the image of Christ. Life will do it to you. That is for the believer. But we always have to keep the faith, and then through the study of the word, we will have the ability to share our ideas with those around us through love first and foremost.

Q. What does it mean to be born again?

A. I always tell people that we must be born again when I try to evangelize. So, I first try to find out if they have any affiliation or understanding of Christianity whatsoever. And I go from there. We have to be born again because we were born naturally, and our great grandfather was Adam, who fell in the garden. Now through the second Adam, that is Jesus, we are capable of being born again through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. That is the propitiation the Cross brings to God the Father.

Reaping the rewards of the faithful life is more precious than gold if I can use the same term Kevin used. More precious than anything of value this universe has to offer. So precious is the result of the faithful life that God sacrificed His Son for the love He had – the pearl of great price that is the human race! I can’t wait to see my loved ones that are there already! I can’t wait to see all that has been redeemed that was lost in this life due to sin and all it causes. It will all be restored so many times over. It is beyond comprehension, just like Job’s life was restored beyond what he originally possessed.

Q. What can you do to accomplish what God has for you?

A. My first and foremost thing is to be faithful to His word, and I had not forsaken the assembly of the brethren. So I went to church on Sunday. And I took one of my business cards, a gospel track, and I shared the Gospel with an individual who received the eagerly.

Once again, we all must remember that our salvation does not depend on how good we can be. Because we can never be good enough in our fallen state, God had to take the initiative to restore us. We have to become that new creation, and that is done through the work of the Cross, not by our hands but by God’s outstretched arm.

Then we can run that good race. Then we can love God with all our heart, soul, and mind and love our neighbors as ourselves.

Thank you and God Bless,
Scott Camilleri
Warrior Notes Tribeca
http://jesus-abc.net.