The LORD is a warrior; Yahweh is his name! (NLT) -Exodus 15:3 "Sometimes we are afraid to fight because we don't believe God wants any fighting to occur. However, there is a time and place to fight. A crucial role of a warrior is knowing when to fight, when not to, and who not to fight (such as fellow believers). The Lord is a warrior and we were designed to fight alongside Him against our fears, our addictions, protecting the poor and needy, bringing justice, or sharing freedom in Christ. What battles are you fighting? Are you bringing the Lord with you to fight your battles?"

Read Galatians 2:16 “…know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.” Think We are addicted to adding things. It starts young—gold stars on a chart, grades on a report card, trophies on a shelf. Do more, get more. Earn more, deserve more. By the time we’re adults, the math is so deeply embedded in how we think that we don’t even question it anymore. Everything is a transaction. Everything has a price. Everything requires input to produce output. So when we hear the gospel, we instinctively add to it. Faith plus good works. Faith plus church attendance. Faith plus the right moral track record. Faith plus baptism in the right tradition. Faith plus tithing. Faith plus volunteering. Faith plus, faith plus, faith plus. We just can’t help ourselves. The idea that the most important thing in the universe requires nothing from us except open hands feels too simple. Too easy. Too good. But Paul says it three different ways in one verse, just to make sure we don’t miss it. Not justified by works. Justified by faith. By the works of the law, no one will be justified. He’s not being redundant—he’s being emphatic. He knows how badly your pride wants to contribute something. So he says it again and again: faith. Not faith plus anything. The gospel doesn’t have a plus sign. The reason we keep adding is that addition gives us control. If salvation requires something from me, then I get to take partial credit. I get to stand before God and say, “You did your part, and I did mine.” I get to measure myself against the person sitting next to me in the pew and feel like I’m ahead because I’ve been showing up longer, giving more, or sinning less—at least visibly. But faith with no math destroys all of that. It levels every person on the planet. The lifelong churchgoer and the person who walked in off the street five minutes ago are justified the same way. By faith. Not by seniority. Not by accumulated good deeds. Not by a spiritual résumé full of impressive credentials. Romans 3:22-23 makes the playing field unmistakable: “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Same problem. Same solution. Same faith.

“Jesus Has Risen & Will Return“ “He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” ~ Luke 24:6-7 NIV The angels who spoke to the women who discovered Jesus’ empty tomb expressed a similar perspective: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” The angels were referring to Jesus, who was alive, as they stood among the tombs. Their words to the women expressed a general truth. Spiritual life is not to be found among the spiritually dead. Applying their words to our life means that we, as citizens of heaven, should not see the world as a source of inspiration for our lives. If Jesus was still entombed among the dead, we would have nowhere to turn except to the world. But since He was resurrected and is alive, let us turn to Him for wisdom and guidance and knowledge but not to this world. “While all men seek after happiness, scarcely one in a hundred looks for it from God.” ~John Calvin “Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” ~ Philippians 3:19-21 NIV Amen…

Four of the Ten Commandments deal with our relationship to God while the other six deal with our relationships with people. All ten are about relationships. ~ Rick Warren ~