Jesus claimed to do nothing but what the Father told Him, and this passage tells us there is something He did not know. How is it then that we can say that the three Persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are co-equal

First, we don’t know whether every prayer recorded in the Scriptures was spoken audibly or not. Some of Paul’s prayers, for example, are written down. We may presume that he spoke them aloud, but we simply do not know.

If you want to tell Father you’re sorry or express regret over things you wish you had not said or done, go right ahead. But do so knowing with certainty that no further forgiveness will be forthcoming. No more forgiveness can be provided because…

It’s all about encryption securely keeping our valuable assets away from would-be enemies. That’s why I love this verse so much. It tells me that my life is now hidden with Christ in God. The Greek word we translate to English as “hidden” is κρύπτω krypto. It means to keep from being seen, to hide in a safe place.

Everyone Has a Choice. If you had no choice, love for God would be impossible. You would be a slave, a puppet, an automaton, doing the will of a domineering puppet master. For there to be a choice, there must be at least two options.

Many have wrongly taught that we are only positionally or judicially righteous. They say that God sees us as righteous and that when we leave this temporal life we will be made completely righteous in heaven. Or they teach that righteousness has been written down to our account, or we have been judged righteous but again, this will only be received by us in heaven.

The problem is that this isn't what the Scriptures teach.

I understand very well that our upbringing and certain physiological traits, such as a tendency toward addiction for example, have a great effect on us as we mature. Many people find themselves unable to move past these things or to overcome the physiological proclivities they find troubling.

Behaving rightly does not save us. Nor does good behavior earn us greater blessing from Father. However, since we are His kids, it does reflect on Him. We are His ambassadors, and poor behavior makes us ineffective in that role.

Jesus is the thread of Scripture. Jesus is the fulfillment of Scripture. Jesus is foreshadowed in the Old Testament and manifested in the New.

Judging is not to become a weapon. Far too many religious institutions have made it into one. “Church discipline” has been misused, abused, and recklessly taught. Many of God's children have been deeply wounded by it.

My hammer is very well suited for each of those things, but when my project requires cutting a board, I do it with another tool. I am the one who decides what I will do with my hammer. My hammer participates, it’s involved, but I determine its specific role in the context of my larger project.

He is the Message and the Messenger of God

We are in Christ in much the same way that we are in our earthly family. By human birth, we are inexorably made children of our parents for life. We are members of their family. We are in their family.

The issue is at least partially how one chooses to define sin. In various places we are told that sin is the transgression of the law, that whatever is not of faith is sin, and so on. The Greek word for sin is (hamartia). At its most basic, this word means to miss the mark.

To have greater faith, or grow in faith, means coming to believe with greater certainty, and that, to me, is trust. That's why I say “trust gives legs to faith.” It is by growing in our knowledge of Him, His vastness, His character, that our temporal lives are transformed without striving in the flesh.

This is his prayer for the saints of Ephesus, and it is one on which we can pattern prayers of our own. First, we might be reminded that Christ does indeed dwell in our hearts. We don’t see Him there nor physically feel Him, yet by faith we are assured that He is there.

This verse closes out Paul’s lengthy parenthetical comment. It is a bit difficult, and the Greek syntax allows for three potential ways of understanding Paul’s meaning. The best of these, which fits well with his urging them to remain strong despite the difficulties Paul is facing, has a parallel in Philippians 1:27–30

Note here that Paul is saying he is less than the least of all saints because he is deeply grateful for the grace of God. He knows that without grace, his religious righteousness, which looked to be perfect to those around him, was worthless and had him just as hell bound as any other murderer.

Clearly there are things that were said to the Jews primarily for their use, just as some things are said to the Gentiles primarily for our use. But in the end, there is one Gospel that applies to everyone on earth equally and in the same way. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.

Before we get too far into this passage, I want to take a moment to talk about this word “dispensation”. I think this is important so that you have some background for the day when someone comes along and starts talking about “rightly dividing” scripture according to dispensations.