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WE FALL U P !
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As God's partners we beg you not to toss aside this marvelous message of God's great kindness. For God says, "Your cry came to me at a favorable time, when the doors of welcome were wide open. I helped you on a day when salvation was being offered." Right now God is ready to welcome you. Today He is ready to save you.
We try to live in such a way that no one will ever be offended or kept back from finding the Lord by the way we act, so that no one can find fault with us and blame it on the Lord. In fact, in everything we do we try to show that we are true ministers of God.
We stand true to the Lord whether others honor us or despise us, whether they criticize us or commend us. We are honored, but they call us liars. The world ignores us, but we are known to God; we live close to death, but here we are, still very much alive. We have been injured but kept from death. Our hearts ache, but at the same time we have the joy of the Lord. We are poor, but we give rich spiritual gifts to others. We own nothing, and yet we enjoy everything.
And in the same way -- by our faith -- the Holy Spirit helps us with our daily problems and in our praying. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how to pray as we should, but the Holy Spirit prays for us with such feeling that it cannot be expressed in words.
And the Father who knows all hearts knows, of course, what the Spirit is saying as He pleads for us in harmony with God's own will. And we know that all that happens to us is working for our good if we love God and are fitting into His plans.
For from the very beginning God decided that those who came to Him -- and all along He knew who would -- should become like His Son so that His Son would be the First, with many brothers (and sisters). And having chosen us, He called us to come to Him; and when we came, He declared us "not guilty." Filled us with Christ's goodness, gave us right standing with Himself, and promised us His glory.
What can we ever say to such wonderful things as these? If God is on our side, who can ever be against us? Since He did not spare His own Son for us but gave Him up for us all, won't He also surely give us everything else?
WELL THEN, SHALL we keep on sinning so that God can keep on showing us more and more kindness and forgiveness? Of course not! Should we keep on sinning when we don't have to? For sin's power over us was broken when we became Christians and were baptized to become a part of Jesus Christ; through His death the power of your sinful nature was shattered.
Your old sin-loving nature was shattered. Your old sin-loving nature was buried with Him by baptism when He died, and when God the Father, with glorious power, brought Him back to life again, you were given His wonderful new life to enjoy.
For you have become a part of Him, and so you died with Him, so to speak, when He died, and now you share His new life, and shall rise as He did. Your old evil desires were nailed to the cross with Him; that part of you that loves to sin was crushed and fatally wounded, so that your sin-loving body is no longer under sin's control, no longer needs to be a slave to sin; for when you are deadened to sin you are freed from all its allure and its power over you.
And since your old sin-loving nature 'died' with Christ, we know that you will share His new life. Christ rose from the dead and will never die again. Death no longer has no power over Him. He died once for all to end sin's power, but now He lives forever in unbroken fellowship with God.
So look upon your old sin nature as dead and unresponsive to sin, and instead be alive to God, alert to Him, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Dear Brethren, honor the officers of your church who work hard among you and warn you against all that is wrong. Think highly of them and give them your wholehearted love because they are straining to help you. And remember, no quarreling among yourselves.
Click for Music. We Fall Down (We Get Up)
sung by Bob Carlisle
Words Raven's Home