The Bible and Life

Friday, September 8, 2023

How To Receive The Gift Of Tongues

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

How to Receive the Gift of Tongues

1. Receive Jesus as Lord and Savior (Jn 7:37).

2. Repent of your sins. (Acts 2:38). Which means to do them no more.

At salvation, we receive the Holy Spirit, but when we speak in tongues, we release the living water.

3. Your faith is needed (Ps 81:10).

Every gift from God is received and released by faith.

As you open your mouth, God will fill it.

4. Remove the fear that you'll speak in demonic tongues.

Trust that God is a good Father (Lk 11:13).

5. You speak in tongues as the Lord gives the utterance. If you speak as a baby and think that is speaking in tongues, you only deceive yourself.

6. Speaking in tongues is from God, controlled by God, for God's purpose. It's not about you!

William James Roop

Wednesday, September 6, 2023

God Isn't Just The God Of...

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Don’t know who the author is but this is such a good poem!

God isn’t just the God of

Steeples

Prayer meetings

Well-paying jobs

Mission trips

Intact families

Worship songs

Sunday school

All those visible spaces.

The ones we show to the world.

The ones that look like we have our act together.

The ones where we will be praised.

He’s bigger than that. Much much bigger.

His heart is bigger.

His presence is bigger.

His well-worn, tenderness is bigger.

BECAUSE

He’s also and especially the God of

Oncology visits

Broken hearts

Empty checking accounts

Funeral parlors

Rehab rooms

Sleepless and fitful nights

Bathroom floors

Messy selves and messy lives

The places where it’s just us and Him.

The ones only He can really see.

Hear.

Understand.

Guide.

Comfort.

Heal.

The places of

Loss

Despair

Loneliness

Doubt

Fear

That are also the places of

Growth

Hope

Belonging

Grace

Peace

The places that nothing and no one else can touch.

Except for this big big, “very present help in time of trouble,” tender-hearted God.

Those are the most sacred places of all.

And some of the most beautiful.

William James Roop

Monday, September 4, 2023

How To Be Spiritual

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

1 DISCIPLINE.

You must make yourself do things that your flesh doesn’t want to do.

These are prayer, devotion, fasting, giving and forgiving.

Speak less and listen more. You can learn from everyone.

Taking good care of your bodily temple. Abusing your body through obesity or tattooing or piercing will attract the wrong spirits.

When you become disciplined you can do things you do not like doing, as though you loved to do them.

2 CONSISTENCY.

Praying and fasting, along with the other things I mentioned are not enough if only practiced sporadically.

PRAY EVERY DAY.

MEDITATE DAILY ON THE SPIRIT'S WORK IN YOUR LIFE.

REFLECT OF YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE.

FAST EVERY WEEK.

GIVE/TITHE EVERY WEEK.

Be constant in your daily, weekly, monthly & yearly disciplines.

This will crucify the flesh. Which in turn strengthens the spirit man.

Don’t be a hit and miss Disciple.

It’s better to pray 10 mins every single day. Than to pray 12 hours on Sunday. Then fail to pray for the next 6 days in a row.

And you will see real spiritual results.

William James Roop

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

The Refiners Fire

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Here is something that I found that I wanted to share with you.

There was once a group of women studying the book of Malachi in the Old Testament. As they were studying chapter three, they came across verse three, which says: “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.” This verse puzzled the women, and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out about the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible study.

That week this woman called up a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn’t mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot – then she thought again about the verse, that he sits as a refiner and purifier of silver. She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.

The man answered “Yes”, and explained that he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left even a moment too long in the flames, it would be damaged.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, “How do you know when the silver is fully refined?”

He smiled at her and answered, “Oh, that’s easy. When I see my image in it.”

If today you are feeling the heat of this world’s fire, just remember that God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ are refining you. "You are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ."

William James Roop

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Without The Logos There Is No God.

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Here is something that I found on the internet that I wanted to share with you.

Without the Logos (the Word), there is no God.

Psalms 138:2 ....For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy NAME. Why does God magnify his word above all his NAME?

I could rescue you from a burning house and never give you my NAME. I could give you a large sum of money (not) and never give you my NAME. Our NAME is secondary to who we are. As a man thinketh in his heart so is he. Before you ever knew who Jesus was or ever heard his NAME He died for you. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. He was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word (logos) and the Word was with God and God was the Word. (Logos) In the original translation it ends by saying God was the Word. What does this mean?

The Logos is literally:

the act of speaking, speech, reason, the mental faculty of thinking, meditating, reasoning, calculating the faculty of speech, skill and practice in speaking

what is declared, a thought, declaration, aphorism, a weighty saying, a dictum, a maxim

Our body is Flesh. We are filled with Blood which gives us life. God’s body is Spirit. He is filled with the Word. His Word is His essence. His words are life. The Spirit of God moved and God said... Without Jesus was not anything made that was made.....

All things were made by Him by the Word of His mouth. Light was the first manifestation of God. In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth. Genesis 1:1

John 1:1 predates that verse as it tells us In the beginning was the Word (logos) and the Logos was God. Then the Word, the very mind and thought of God spoke and created by the breath of His mouth Psalms 33:6

You CANNOT separate the Word of God from God. That would be akin to trying to separate our thoughts and words from ourselves. They are more than inextricably linked to us, rather they ARE us.

The Word, which is the very mind, thoughts, voice, and mediation of God was innate in the very God of Heaven who is Spirit. God purchased the Church with his own blood Acts 20:28. That Word and Spirit was tabernacled among us. the Ark of the covenant being a picture of God himself. The Gold representing Deity and the wood representing humanity.

Jesus is the ONLY begotten of the Father. He came forth from or emanated from Him. To wit that God was in Christ (Christ being the manifestation of God) Christ made God visible. Christ aside from God does not exist. The God of Heaven is who made Christ Christ.

Isaiah 43:11, I even I am The Lord and beside me there is no savior. Luke 2:11, For unto you is born this Day a Savior which is Christ The Lord. Lastly but not finally. Without God there is no Christ. God is who makes Christ, Christ. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Acts 2:36

Jesus is the Mighty God. Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but NOW is made manifest to his saints: Colossians 1:26. God made man a little lower than the Angels. Christ was made lower also.

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. Hebrews 2:9. God made man, God came as man. That man, our intercessor was given all power in heaven and earth. He was filled with ALL the Spirit of God.

For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. John 3:34. Without measure Jesus Christ was filled. God, all of God, not the second person in the trinity, was in Christ.

William James Roop

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Bummer Lambs

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Here is something that I came across that I wanted to share with you.

Every once in a while, a ewe will give birth to a lamb and reject it. If the lamb is returned to the ewe, the mother may even kick the poor animal away. Once a ewe rejects one of her lambs, she will never change her mind.

These little lambs will hang their heads so low that it looks like something is wrong with its neck. Their spirit is broken. These lambs are called “bummer lambs.” Bummer lambs will steal your heart, and despite our best efforts, they don't always make it. When an ewe ignores or rejects a lamb, she may do so because it has a problem that will prevent it from thriving.

Unless the shepherd intervenes, that lamb will die, rejected and alone. So, do you know what the shepherd does? He takes that rejected little one into his home, hand-feeds it and keep it warm by the fire. He will wrap it up with blankets and hold it to his chest so the bummer can hear his heartbeat. This takes a lot of time from the busy shephard, but the shepherd loves his sheep.

Once the lamb is strong enough, the shepherd will place it back in the field with the rest of the flock. But that sheep never forgets how the shepherd cared for him when his mother rejected him.

When the shepherd calls for the flock, guess who runs to him first? That is right, the bummer sheep. He knows his voice intimately. It is not that the bummer lamb is loved more, it just knows intimately the one who loves it.

So many of us are bummer lambs, rejected and broken. But He is the good Shepherd. He cares for our every need and holds us close to His heart so we can hear His heart beat. We may be broken but we are deeply loved by the Shepherd.

From one bummer sheep to another… I love you!

William James Roop