Look To The Scriptures

Galatians 3;9

"So then they which be of faith are

blessed with faithful Abraham"

    The Judaizers believed that Moses was their teacher and insisted that justification resulted from compliance to the law of Moses. their argument was that the Galatians could not be justified, sanctified without circumcision and faithful observance of the Law. But Paul delivered a blow against that notion when he showed them from the Scriptures, that God justified Abraham, a Gentile because of his faith, centuries before the law was given! He wrote, "Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness" (Gal. 3:6).   

   What more could anyone want than to be counted righteous in God's sight? It is clearly shown that God declares all who possess faith like Abraham's to be the sons of Abraham, "Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham," (Gal 3:7). My Friends, that Scripture should open the eyes of all people to exactly what it takes for us to be back in communion with God! 
    Why do I say that? Because since the fall of mankind when Adam broke God's first command, He wants nothing more but to reunite us with Him. "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," (Gen 2:16-17). 
    So from the very beginning of mankind God's Commands were broken, before the Law of Moses was written and even after. Throughout history God has not given up on trying to reunite with mankind, However He has placed the choice on our shoulders. One on each shoulder, "Believe, and Faith." There is a lot of things that we believe in during our life time that we don't place faith with. Why? Because we can see or touch what we believe in. My Friends, there are things in this world that we can not see or touch the we believe in and that is where Faith comes in. Just as The Heroes of Faith in (Hebrews 11) did, they believed and followed through by Faith! "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report," (Heb. 11:1). I ask you today, Does Your Belief in Our Lord and Saviour have the Faith of Abraham, Enoch, Noah, Isaac or any of the Heroes of Faith? None of us could ever hold a candle to them, but remember the Bible tells us it only takes Faith the size of a mustard seed to move a mountain, and God Is On That Mountain! 
Amen!

Reading:  (Gal. 3:6-9)
                (Heb. 11)
Ref: (HG SB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry   

 

Look To The Spirit

Galatians 3:3 

"Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit,

are ye now made perfect by the flesh?"

    The argument Paul puts forth follows a line of reasoning: Why were they depending on law keeping to spice up Gods Favor and Blessings, yet their own experience could have shown them that they had received the Holy Spirit by Faith and not as a result of law keeping. So why should they turn from faith, which proved effective, to legalism, which was ineffective as a means for receiving the Spirit? Now if faith permitted the Galatians to begin a walk with God with the Comforter alongside, what was to be gained by relying on the flesh to make them perfect. Not a thing!!

    Today, Christians are not that worried about law keeping, it's the practicing of religious traditions their beliefs, status-quo, too much socialism and not enough fellowship. What does God say about the works of the flesh? He declares that no good thing dwells in the flesh. The flesh serves the law of sin, and they who are in the flesh cannot please God.

    My Friends, How futile is it for a believer to adhere slavishly to human teaching and legalistic rules in hope of obtaining the power of the Holy Spirit? Such conduct will not lead to fruitfulness, but frustration. The Holy Spirit ministers through believers in response to Him.

Amen!

Reading: (Gal. 3:2-5)

Ref: (HG SB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry 

A Life At Peace With God

Galatians 2:18-19

"For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make

myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead

to the law, that I might live unto God." 

    Paul speaks here from personal experience. For him to re-erect the whole fabric of the law would have been spiritual suicide. He said that through the law he died to the law that he might live to God. Basically what he means is; he had tried the way of law, he had tried with all the terrible intensity of his heart to put himself right with God by a life that sought to obey every single item of that law. 
    He had found that such an attempt produced nothing but a deeper and deeper sense that all he could do could never put him right with God. All the law had done was to show him his own helplessness. Therefore he had suddenly abandoned that way and had cast himself, sinner as he was, on the mercy of God. It was the law which had driven him to God. To go back to the law would simply have entangled him all over again in the sense of alienation from God. So great was the change that the only way he could describe it was to say that he had been crucified with Christ so that the man he used to be was dead and the living power within him now was Christ himself.
    "If I can put myself to rights with God by obeying the law then what is the need of grace? If I can win my own salvation, why did Christ have to die?"  I know that Jesus Christ has done for me what he could never have done for himself. "The just shall live by faith." A life at peace with God can never be attained by this futile, never ending, ever defeated effort; it could be had only by casting ourselves on the love and mercy of God as the Gospel of Jesus Christ has revealed them to us. 
Amen!

Reading: (Gal. 2:11-21)
Ref: (HG SB; DSB) 

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry 

 

The Precious Bond

Ephesians  5:24  

"Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, 

so let the wives be to their own 

husbands in every thing." 

    Throughout the years the Christians view of marriage has come to be widely accepted. However, it seems that even where practice has fallen short of the christian ideal of marriage.  Marriage is regarded as the perfect union of body, mind and spirit between a man and a woman. But things were very different when Paul wrote this passage.
    In this passage Paul is setting forth an ideal that is shone with a radiant purity in an immoral world. When Paul wrote this passage he was not stating the view that every man held. He was calling men and women to a new purity and a new fellowship in the married life. There are things that Paul wrote about marriage that puzzles and may make us wish that he had never written them.
    My Friends, the blunt truth is that Paul's teaching is that marriage is permissible merely in order to avoid something worse. "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband," (1 Cor. 7:2). There was a reason why Paul wrote like this. It was because they were expecting the Second Coming of Jesus in any hour. It was his conviction and it should be ours as well; "that no one should undertake any earthly ties whatsoever, but that all should concentrate on using the short time which remained in preparing for the coming of their Lord." "The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, and how to please his wife.
    In this day of our Lord, not many married couples are standing up to how Paul wrote about marriage. Listen if you are a Christian married couple, and I mean Biblical, or a married couple that don't know Jesus Christ as your saviour, there should be no difference in the Marriage Bond That God Established In Your Marriage. 
    The problem that married couples face today are all self inflicted.  We do it to ourselves! We do little things that hurt each other and never say anything to our partner until you yourself lets it blow out of proportion. I don't care what anyone says; "they can not read or assume they know exactly how their partner thinks or would react to situations in their marriage." My Friends, we can only take what Paul wrote as a guide line, But that guide line is a "Marriage Bond Established By God" I will not quote Eph. 5:24, But I will say Husbands and wife's, "Love Each Other As Christ Loved You, And Subject Yourselves To Each Other In All Things." (Minister Robert Lail Sr.) 
Amen!

Reading: (Eph. 5:22-33)

Ref: (HG SB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

         
    

True Conviction Leads To Change Of Mind And Heart

Acts 2:36-37 

"Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus,

whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.  Now when they heard this,

they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest

of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do.

    What does the word Conviction really mean? We all know that answer. However, it means "making one conscious of his guilt." What is Conviction produced by? Conviction is produced by the following: The Holy Spirit, (John 16:7-11) The Gospel, (Acts 2:37) Your Conscience (Rom. 2:15) and (The Law, James 2:9).  But let me ask this; Do we really know when and what we are being convicted or what caused our conviction?
    This passage shows us the crystal clear effect of the Cross. When men realized just what they had done in crucifying Jesus their hearts were broken. "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. " (John 12:32). Every man has had a hand in that crime. How many times have we seen the Cross on the wall in Church or a picture of the Cross during Bible Study. Have you ever wanted to just stand and say "Come down from that Cross, Son of God,"  "I, not you, should be hanging there." When we understand what happened there on the Cross, it must pierce the heart.
    That experience demands a reaction from men. "Repent," said Peter, "first and foremost." What does repentance mean? The word originally meant an afterthought. Often a second thought shows that the first thought was wrong; and so the word came to mean a Change of mind. But, if a man is honest, a change of mind demands a change of action. Repentance must involve both change of mind and change of action. That action being change of Heart. However, be aware of this; A man may change his mind and come to see that his actions were wrong but be so much in love with his old ways that he will not change them. A man may change his ways but his mind remains the same, changing only because of fear or prudence. True repentance involves a change of mind and a change of  "Heart."  
Amen!

Reading: ( Acts 2:36-41)
Ref: ( HG SB; DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family
Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.
The Cross Life Ministry

Love God Like That

Galatians 1:6 

"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into

the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another;

but there be some that trouble you, and

would pervert the gospel of Christ." 

    Do you feel like you could ever earn the love of God? That is a question that each of us must answer ourselves. My Friends, I believe the only answer is, give ourselves to His mercy in faith. We should always have a wondering gratitude what God offers us daily. However, the important thing is not what we can do for ourselves but what he has done for us through His Son Jesus Christ.
    After all, if religion consists in fulfilling a mass of rules and regulations, it is, at least possible to satisfy its demands; but Paul is holding up the Cross and saying, "God loved you like that." Religion becomes a matter, not of satisfying the claims of law, but of trying to meet the obligation of love.  "Love God Like That." A man can satisfy the claims of law, for they have strict limits; but we can never satisfy the claims of love, because if we gave our loved one the sun, the moon and the stars we still would be left feeling that was far too small. all Paul's wants us to see is that God made the law to be no more relevant through the Blood Of Jesus Christ.
Amen!

Reading: (Galatians 1:6-10)
(Ref: HG SB; DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

Go Foward In Truth

2 Corinthians  13:8 

"For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth."

    Paul hoped that the Corinthians would go forward to perfection. That should be our hope as well. As Christians we can not be standing still in our Christian life. If we are not going forward we are slipping back. The Christian is a man who is always on his way to God. We must listen to what God is saying to us. It takes a big man to listen to hard advice, and I don't mean big by height, weight or strength; I mean a man with a strong and faithful heart toward God.  
    We would be a great deal better off if we would stop talking about what we want and begin listening to the voices of the wise, and especially to the voice of Jesus Christ. We must strive to live in agreement and in peace. No congregation can worship the God of peace in the spirit of bitterness. Men must love each other before their love for God has any reality. 
Amen!

Reading: (2 Cor. 13:1-14)
Ref: (HG SB; DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry