Undeniable

During my devotional time with a John MacArthur message, I was struck by something so basic and yet so profound to me and I wanted to share it with whomever will listen.
Spiritual growth is matching my practice with my position. This seems to be an impossible task because my position in Christ is perfect. How can I match that? But, I am complete in Him, I have all things that pertain to life, I have been blessed with all spiritual blessings, now what I want to do is progress in my practical life to live in a way that is consistent with my position.
Hopefully you can relate to this  illustration. I went directly to music school after high school. As a requirement we had to do live playing performances each month for credit. That meant each month we had to find new band members and perform any style in front of dozens of professional musicians and peers. There were times when I would be grouped with some really amazing musicians and some really less than amazing musicians. What I noticed was most of the time when playing with the really great players, my performances would elevate and I would play at a much greater level than I had in the past. In the same respect, with the less excellent players, my level of playing would decrease. I would practice and perform at the level of my band mates.
The same thing is true in a spiritual sense, I need to become in practice what I am in position.
That requires the practice of glorifying God in every situation and though in everyday.

The writer of Hebrews is speaking to the unsaved who have heard the truth and acknowledged it, but who have hesitated to embrace Christ. The Holy Spirit warns them, “You had better come to Christ now, for if you fall away it will be impossible for you to come again to the point of repentance.” They were at the best point for repentance–full knowledge. To fall back from that would be fatal.

Because many people believe the warning is addressed to Christians, many interpreters hold that the passage teaches that salvation can be lost. If this interpretation were true, however, the passage would also teach that, once lost, salvation could never be regained. There would be no going back and forth, in and out of grace. But Christians are not being addressed, unbelievers are and it is the opportunity for receiving salvation that can be missed, not salvation itself, that can be lost.

The Bible is absolutely clear about followers of Christ  not losing salvation. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (John 10:27-29; see also Rom. 8:35-39; Phil. 1:6; and 1 Pet. 1:4-5).

Something to ponder: If you can lose your salvation, why witness? No one would ever consider Christ if they could lose there salvation. Where is the joy in that? If you are in Christ, rejoice. Your salvation is secure forever.

The word “abba” is an Aramaic word, a-b-b-a, is a translation of a word in Aramaic. Remember, Jesus spoke Aramaic. That was the language of first century Jews. That was his first language. When he was a child learning to speak, he learned to speak Aramaic. Then He learned to speak Hebrew to read the temple scrolls. Then He learned Greek. He spoke three languages. Now, in Hebrew, we have the same word “ab,” a-b-, and the word “ab” is “father”. “Ab” is “father.” In Aramaic “ab” is father. In Hebrew “ab” is father. If we want to make the word “ab” definite in Hebrew, we put the definite article on at the beginning of the word, and that’s spelled h-a. So, we make “ab,” we make it “ha ab.” That’s “the father.” In Aramaic, the definite article doesn’t come at the beginning of the word as it does in Hebrew, but it comes at the end of the word.
So this part at the end of the word, the “a”, and another apostrophe, that means “the.” “Abba” means “the father.” It does not mean “daddy.” “Daddy” is a modern American locution (idiom) that is absolutely unknown in the first century. And we know that this is what it means because in the Greek New Testament, wherever the word “abba” is used, it is then translated into Greek. Now, listen to how it’s rendered. It says “abba,” and then it says “ha pater.” “Pater” is “father.” “Ha pater” is “the father.” It’s articular. So “abba” is not “daddy.”
A 35-year-old man isn’t going to say “daddy,” to God? He’s going to say “father.”
When Jesus was in the garden, in the most anguishing moment of His life to that point, where He had earlier said, remember Psalm 116, “this is the cup of salvation.” Now He’s in the garden. And He says, “Father, take this cup from me.” He’s in absolute anguish. And when He says “father,” He could’ve spoken in Hebrew. He could’ve spoken in Greek. But, He spoke in Aramaic, because Aramaic was the language of His childhood. It was the language of His youth. It was the language of His heart in His humanity. People who are multilingual, when they’re in the deepest time of turmoil, tend to pray in their first language, and that’s what Jesus did. He said, “Abba,” “father.” In the times of our deepest stress, of our hopelessness, of a sense there’s no way out, you and I have the same authority Jesus had, because we’ve been made co-heirs with him, to speak to God with this same endearing word, “father.” And when we do that with the earnestness of a hurting heart, something happens we don’t even pretend to understand. The Holy Spirit begins praying to the Father on our behalf in words that are beyond our imagination.

God is one. The great emphasis of the First Testament (Old Testament) is the oneness of the only true God, the God of Israel (Dt 6:4, Isa 42:8, 43:10, 1Ki 18:39).
The common word “one” is ehad. It is seen over 900 times in the First Testament and it carries the idea of a composite unity. The same word is used in describing one flesh between one man and one woman as husband and wife. (Ge 2:24). A related word, yahid characterizes “solitary, alone,” but it is not used of God in the First Testament.
God speaks using the designation “we” and “us” (Ge 1:26, 3:22, 11:7, Isa 6:8); some relate this to angels or a divine council but only with difficulty. Elohim and Adonai are both in the plural form. They are almost always used with singular verbs and modifiers as proper names. Other plural terms for God are rarely translated (Ecc 12:1 lit. “Creators”).
The First Testament and Intertestamental view of God was less individualistic than today. The Spirit of God (Ge 1:2), the Word of God (1:3; Ps 33:6), Wisdom of God (Pr 8:22-31), the Angel of God (Ex 3:2-15, and sometimes the Messiah (Isa 9:6; Mic 5:2) were seen as both God yet God distinct from God. These apparent divine agents were personified and ascribed divine attributes. — Dr. Horrell, DTS.
God as distinct from God. Isa 48:16, 44:6, Zec 12:10, Ps 45:6-7, 110:1

The authority of Scripture means that all the words in Scripture are God’s words. Not obeying any word in Scripture would be the same as not obeying God. We can only appeal to the Scripture when we trust its authority. There are many places in Scripture that the Bible claims for itself absolute authority. It only appeals to its own authority because there is no higher authority to appeal to. If something is the ultimate authority, what else can it appeal to? If the Bible appealed to human reason to confirm its authority, it would show that human reason is a higher authority.

Scripture is sufficient. It contains the whole will of God. It sufficiently teaches everything necessary for a person to be saved and have eternal life. Scripture is sufficient. It gives full life in all aspects to the soul and is sufficient for all of life and conduct. Psalm 19:7-9 says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous all together.”

When it comes to the matters of spiritual life, all we need to know is revealed in the Word of the living God and ministered to us by the Spirit through that Word. 2 Corinthians 9:8 says, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.”

Canonicity is the collection of the 66 books of the Bible accepted as being inspired and authoritative. It is a standard or rule. The connection between Inspiration and Canonicity is that the Word of God was protected from human error in its original record by the ministry of the Holy Spirit; and that ministry extended to both the words and the Bible as a whole in the original writings. “Without the act of inspiration, there can be no canon.”[1] Though Kreider states, “How the manuscripts were recognized as inspired and accepted as canon is not the issue”, I feel that how we know what writings were supposed to be included in the canon of Scripture is significant. Three principles were used to validate both the Old and New Testament. First, the writing had to have a recognized prophet or apostle as its author, or someone associated to them as in Mark, Luke, Hebrews, James and Jude. Second, the writing could not contradict previous Scripture. Third, the writing had to have a consensus by the church as an inspired book.

One important example might be the Apocrypha, the group of writings written after Malachi during the silent period. These writings made it in to some Bibles, more specifically, the Catholic Bible. Not one passage from the Apocrypha was ever cited by any New Testament writer, nor did Jesus recognize any of it as He recognized the Old Testament canon of His era. Luke 24:27 states, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” Also, Luke 24:44 says, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

Another element of canonicity is preservation. God knew that Satan and man would try to pervert or discredit His Word, so God promised to preserve it. “The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of God stands forever.” Is 40:8.

Inspiration is the act where God is the responsible manager and arranger of the Bible through human authorship, so that they recorded without error His message in words of original writings. We see this in 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” God spoke the Bible. He was the source by which the original manuscripts, the writings themselves, were inspired. Today when we get inspired to do something, it is an emotional inspiration; something or someone moves us in an emotional way to do something. However, this was not the case with the Biblical writers. The writers were not inspired by God to write the Bible, but rather the writings were inspired.

Inerrancy is derived from the doctrine of Inspiration in that the Bible says scripture is from God; and since God is perfect and cannot lie; the Scriptures are therefore inerrant. Scripture is inerrant in everything that it teaches, whether it is faith, morality, history, science or geography; it is completely true. This is not to say that every copy is without errors, like typos or misspellings, but that every teaching, instruction, action and saying happened, is true, is from God and is without error. Inerrancy also refers to truth.  In addition to the character of God who is trustworthy, His word is true. Inerrancy can be supported in John 17:17, where Jesus says, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” So, the Bible as the Word of God, which is inspired by God, is true. Feinberg supports this by saying, “Inerrancy is related to Scripture’s intention.” He goes on to say, “Scripture accurately records many things that are false, for example the falsehoods of Satan and human beings.”[1] This is illustrated in the garden when Satan