Are You Rowing or Sailing?

A wise pastor once explained to his congregation:

'The life of a Believer is like being in a boat. God has plans for you, and you can trust that He will complete His work in your life. The Holy Spirit is like the wind that will take the boat places.

Now you have a choice. You can get out the oars and start rowing with all your might, and exhaust yourself in the process. You might even row against the wind and become frustrated. Or, you can stop rowing and let out the sails, and let the wind carry the boat.

Similarly, you can try to do God's work in your strength and by your own effort, and become worn out, or even end up working against Him and become frustrated. Or you can surrender to God and let Him do His work in your life.'

Are you trying to please God through your own work and by your own strength? Are you trying to accomplish your own vision and fulfill your own dreams? Are you trying to make yourself a better person or a better follower by your own effort and legalism?

Or are you surrendering to His grace and recognizing your own inability to be transformed apart from Him? Are you trusting Him and allowing Him to direct your path and fulfill His purpose for your life? Are you resting in the Savior's finished work, and abiding in God's acceptance of you as you have been reborn in Christ, already declared righteous in heaven, and justified by His grace alone through faith in Christ?

Will you surrender? Will you trust? Will you rest? Will you abide?

Are you His child? Only those who believe in the Son are adopted as children of God, and made joint heirs with Christ Jesus.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." -Romans 8:28, NKJV

"I know that you [God] can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted." -Job 42:2, NIV

"being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;" -Philippians 1:6, NKJV

"For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" -Romans 8:29-32, NKJV

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." -Ephesians 2:8-9, NKJV

"And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work." -Romans 11:6, NKJV

"For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience." -Hebrews 4:10-11, NKJV

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved." -Ephesians 1:2-6, NKJV

"The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together." -Romans 8:16-17, NKJV

Grace and peace to you.

Guest at a Resort, or Prisoner Set Free?

A wise pastor once asked his congregation,

'Do you go through life acting like a guest at a luxury resort, expecting everything to be wonderful and feeling entitled to good things? And then do you get upset, or disappointed, or angry when things don't work out the way you want or expect?

Or do you go through life acting like a person recently released from prison, expecting nothing and feeling appreciative when good things happen? Do you feel grateful in recognition that you really deserve nothing and everything good is a blessing?'

Which of these attitudes do you have most days? Which do you have today?

"But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away." -Isaiah 64:6, NKJV

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." -Romans 6:23, NKJV

"He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities." -Psalm 103:10, NKJV

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." -James 1:17, NKJV

Grace and peace to you.

Did Jesus Go to Hell?

What did Jesus do between the crucifixion and the resurrection? Was His soul asleep? Was He in heaven with the Father? Did He go to hell? I believe the Bible tells us what He did and where He (His spirit) went, and I don't believe it was any of the above. The Bible doesn't say much about it, but according to my studies, here's what I think it says:

"Therefore He says: 'When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.' (Now this, 'He ascended'—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)" -Ephesians 4:8-10, NKJV

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water." -1 Peter 3:18-20, NKJV

“There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’ Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’" -Luke 16:19-31, NKJV

Let's try to make sense of all this. The first passage tells us that Jesus (being the one referenced who ascended) first descended prior to His ascension; both ascension and descension occurring from a central position, being on earth. We know that He ascended to heaven, or paradise, to be with the Father. We see in this passage that He also "led captivity captive," or led those who were captive away as captives. Now what does this mean? Those who were already being held captive were then led away as captives by Him after the resurrection. We know from elsewhere in the New Testament that Jesus defeated sin and death as a result of His death and resurrection. I assert here that those who were already captive that He then led away in "captivity" at the ascension were those who were already dead and were captive of death. They then became captive to Him, rather than to death. But not all the dead were so led away by Him, but only those who were awaiting His redeeming work by faith. More to come on this later. I also discuss this in more detail in another writing: http://intellectualtheist.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-happens-after-death.html?m=1 Either way, it appears that Jesus "descended" somewhere prior to the ascension, and during the ascension "He led captivity captive" away from death. Where did He descend? The text states that He descended into "the lower parts of the earth." I can only discern that this must be where the dead were that He led away captive at His ascension. So He must have descended to Sheol (Hebrew) where the dead were held captive. Sheol is the place of the dead. It is translated into Greek in the Old Testament as Hades. It is sometimes referred to in English as "death" or "the grave." But in essence, it is the place where the dead went, both righteous and unrighteousness before the redeeming work of Christ (see my other referenced writing for more information). The text here indicates that this place is in the lower parts of the earth. If we take it literally, then that might indicate that Sheol, or Hades, is somewhere within the earth. I speculate it has some interdimensional locality. But that is beyond the scope of my intended purpose here. Either way, this place should not be confused with what I regard as hell, or Gehenna (Greek). Again, see my other writing for more details. Also, I surmise that Jesus would have gone to Sheol, the place where the dead abide, while He was dead Himself, which would have been the time between His crucifixion and resurrection.

The second passage tells us that Christ went and preached to the spirits (read that the spirits of those already deceased, or else I don't think the text would have categorized said individuals as spirits rather than people) in prison. What kind of people are imprisoned? By definition, I would say prisoners are captives; captives are prisoners. What kind of spirits are imprisoned? It seems that these were captive spirits of the dead. These two passages seem to be connected in my reasoning. Why would Jesus preach to spirits in prison? My educated theory is because these spirits of the dead were awaiting the work of God by faith for their redemption. Being already dead prior to the time that Jesus finished His redemptive work, they didn't have knowledge of said work, other than perhaps through an understanding of God's prior promises and prophecies. Either way, Jesus went and preached to them. Logical consistency indicates that these individuals were in Sheol. The structure of the text, as well as said former logical consistency, indicates this took place after Jesus' death. So again, it appears that after His crucifixion Jesus went to Sheol and preached to the spirits of the dead.

The third passage I have included here for context as a description of Sheol, or Hades, and is dissected in detail in my other writing that I referenced earlier.

Based upon these passages, it is my conclusion that Jesus, upon His death but prior to His resurrection, went to Sheol, or Hades (or death, or the grave), preached to the spirits of those who were already dead and awaiting God's promise of redemption by faith, rose from death, and then took the spirits of these "saints" of prior ages out of Sheol to be with Him and the Father in paradise, or the present third heaven (the interdimensional plane from where the Father and Son currently reign all of creation), at the ascension.

I hope this answers in your mind the question I posed at the beginning, and I hope that you enjoyed reading this. This is simply my understanding of the answer to the question based upon Scripture. To God be the glory. Grace and peace to you.