Pastor Randy Shupe

ETERNAL LIFE:
A PRESENT POSSESSION OR PROMISED POSSESSION?

With this text in mind, that every fact is established in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let us examine the recorded witness that the Scriptures bear pertaining to the subject of when one receives eternal life. There are 15 pertinent passages in the New Testament using the words eternal life and 10 verses using the phrase everlasting life. About half of both categories are repetitive passages which you can (and should) verify for yourself. Let us look at 10 of those passages which convey different aspects and qualifying content that shed light on the subject of when the believer will inherit eternal/everlasting life. You might be in for a shock, for the Scriptures do not convey the likes of what is being presented by the modern-day version of the gospel.

"THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD IN CHRIST:
THE FINAL ACT OF SALVATION"

Faith is considered to be “a done deal.” Grace is also viewed as “a done deal.” The same is true of the doctrine of salvation, it too is “a done deal.” Everything is a finished work of the past in modern-day, over-simplified, cliché-laden doctrinal expressions. However, they do not teach the fullness of what the Scriptures contain.
It is true of faith, it is true of grace, and I want to show you it is also true of salvation. We need to move away from merely expressing the Christian experience as a completed POSSESSION of the past, and begin to see it as an ongoing PROCESS.

CREMATION:
IS IT FOR CHRISTIANS?

There is intense pressure to follow what everybody else is doing that is considered to be “the norm.” Considering the ever-increasing levels of cremations vs. burials that are taking place we, as Christians, are more and more exposed to the dilemma of being personally involved in cremation funerals of loved ones, friends and acquaintances. This newsletter is written to God’s people who are instructed to be “not of this world” (Jn.15:19), and “not to be conformed to this world” (Rom. 12:2). Hopefully, we, as being divinely enlightened, take our guidance solely from the revelation of the Scriptures. However, this narrow path of illumination will place you in direct conflict with the widely accepted status quo of customs and traditions cherished by the world. Cremation is one of those perilous traditions.

PART NINE OF THE BEATITUDES:
"The Persecuted Believer"

Ask most Christians in America what they know about persecution and the answer might be "PERCY who?" Although we live under the reputation of being the "land of the free and the home of the brave," and readily boast of every citizen’s constitutional guarantee of "inalienable rights" to a safe and secure life, these secular concepts do not make us immune from experiencing true biblical persecution. Yes, it is true that the American Christian is not subject to the kind of persecution experienced by brothers and sisters living under cruel dictatorships throughout the world.
Constitutional freedom to practice religion is not a preventive
guarantee against such persecution.
Paul describes a cause for persecution that is
not dependent upon WHERE one lives,
but rather for HOW one lives:
"YES, AND ALL WHO DESIRE TO LIVE GODLY
IN CHRIST JESUS WILL SUFFER PERSECUTION"

PART EIGHT OF THE BEATITUDES:
"THE PEACEMAKERS"

Take a long, hard look at what is contrasted above from among the sayings of Jesus. The same Jesus who pronounces a divine blessing upon the peacemakers, elsewhere clearly warns that to become a true follower of His will potentially makes peaceful family relationships very difficult and very costly to achieve. Peace has always been costly. Peace usually follows as the aftermath of war. Jesus is describing a state of warfare even among family blood-relationships that is a potential result of making a stand for truth as defined by Jesus who is called "The Truth" (Jn. 14:6).

PART SEVEN OF THE BEATITUDES:
"BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART"

This is the seventh newsletter dedicated to the topic of the Beatitudes. This newsletter focuses upon the sixth Beatitude spoken of by Jesus, "Blessed are the pure in Heart, for they shall see God."
There is a great parallel to be seen here: the ability to see God as He really is, requires that we, as followers of God, be able to see ourselves as we really are. A deceitful heart can prevent us from doing so. This newsletter is dedicated to those principles necessary for maintaining a healthy heart.

Often I find that what is happening in the physical realm foreshadows spiritual happenings as well. Physical heart disease is deadly. So is spiritual heart disease. It would not be difficult to document from the Word of God that the condition of the heart of the believer is also in great jeopardy if not carefully maintained and looked after.

PART SIX OF THE BEATITUDES:
"Blessed are the Merciful"

"THE MERCIFUL MAN DOES GOOD FOR HIS OWN SOUL,
BUT HE WHO IS CRUEL TROUBLES HIS OWN FLESH."
Prov. 11:17

Mercy is not an emotional act of spontaneous combustion, it is a willful choice to be made in spite of how stirred up one’s emotions become in life’s difficult moments. Look carefully at the two contrasting scriptures above pertaining to the status of the soul and you can see the calming effect that a merciful attitude produces compared to the disturbing results of choosing the pathway of responding with cruelty. We can either choose to do good for our soul or we can trouble our own flesh with a flesh-based response. One is a path of decisive action while the other is an emotionally-based reaction. Most of unregenerate mankind feeds on the “rightness” to be retaliatory, vengeful, and spiteful when they determine that they have been wronged.

PART FIVE OF THE BEATITUDES:
"HUNGERING AND THIRSTING FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS"
"BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR
RIGHTEOUSNESS, FOR THEY SHALL BE FILLED"`
Matt. 5:6

"HUNGER and THIRST" are two powerful driving forces in man that must be continually and repeatedly satisfied. It has been estimated that a healthy man can survive about four days without any water intake and perhaps thirty to forty days without absorbing any solid food. Jesus’ illustration here in the Beatitudes of a people hungering and thirsting after something other than the necessity of food and water is quite purposeful. It is an admonition for us as followers of Christ to apply such basic, ongoing driving forces as “hunger and thirst” to things beyond the physical needs. This fourth Beatitude identifies what spiritual goal God would have us to pursue with the same intensity that ”hunger and thirst” produces in the physical realm. We are to hunger and thirst for RIGHTEOUSNESS. As hunger and thirst is not a one-time necessity in life, neither is the kind of righteousness spoken of as a Beatitude a one time event. Righteousness is not only an initial GIFT of Christ, but it is also presented as an ongoing FRUIT in the life of the believer. It is this continual development of the fruit of righteousness for which we are to “hunger and thirst” with great intensity.

PART FOUR OF THE BEATITUDES:
"BLESSED ARE THE MEEK"

The world has no clue as to the true meaning of meekness. It is convinced that meekness is a mark of weakness. The fact that Moses and Jesus are singled out as being marked with the character trait of meekness confirms that the world does not understand its meaning. If you read the accounts of the lives of Moses and Jesus, no one will be able to accuse them of having led “tame, timid, bland, weak, mild, docile, lacking ambition, spiritless and wimpish” lives on earth.The notable Greek scholar, William Barclay makes in his book, "Flesh and Spirit", this comment about the word translated as “meekness”:

"THIS IS THE MOST UNTRANSLATABLE OF WORDS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT….NO SINGLE WORD IS SUFFICIENT TO CONVEY ITS MEANING…WE MUST LOOK TO THE USE OF THE WORD IN SCRIPTURE TO SHED LIGHT ON ITS MEANING…"

The world in which we live considers meekness to be: "TAME, TIMID, BLAND, WEAK, MILD, DOCILE, LACKING AMBITION, SPIRITLESS, WIMPISH"
Holding to such an erroneous definition of meekness, the world scoffs at the proclamation of this Beatitude that it will be the meek that will inherit the earth. Meekness isn’t weakness-it is God’s hidden key to great strength.

PART THREE OF THE BEATITUDES:
"THEY THAT MOURN"

Our focus is on the Beatitudes of Matthew Chapter Five. In our last newsletter we examined what it means to be “poor in spirit” as followers of Jesus Christ. This month’s newsletter seeks to shed light on God’s unique mark upon His people as “those who mourn.” Being “poor in spirit” is not the result of suffering PHYSICAL poverty, and neither is the attribute of “those who mourn” describing the result of PHYSICAL mourning that takes place at the departure of those whom we love.
Rather, we want to examine a form of mourning (“grief and sorrow”) of heart that is to uniquely govern the lives of God’s people as they cultivate agony of heart for the wasted lifestyle of the living, both believer and unbeliever alike. Consider the example set by Jesus and Paul:

PART TWO OF THE BEATITUDES:
"THE POOR IN SPIRIT"

What is stated as the first of the Beatitudes by Jesus in the New Testament has been previously recorded in an amplified manner by the mouth of Isaiah the prophet. This is an important truth to bring forth, for the contents of the Beatitudes are not restricted as new revelation given only to New Testament believers, as many teach. All the principles of the Beatitudes of Matthew Chapter Five can be found in the Old Testament as well. Not only are they in the Old Testament, but these often contain amplification and clarification not found in the more simple statements of the Beatitudes in Matthew!
These are unchanging principles that God has always required of His people. These are the “attitudes” that God desires to see permeating the lives of His people on earth! These are the life-changing principles that are to govern the Kingdom of God in its present manifestation on earth. These are the God-given principles that make the believer a true witness, a stark distinction from that which marks the people of the world! It is the Beatitudes that enable our light to shine into darkness (Matt. 5:16)

INTRODUCTION TO THE "BE" ATTITUDES

It was Shakespeare that penned the moral challenge to man in stating,
“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
However, long before this challenge to mankind was penned, God’s Word set before His own people a set of moral values that have been dubbed with the popular title, “The Beatitudes.” The Latin word for “beatitude” simply means “blessed.” Each beatitude begins with the words, “Blessed are…” In the Beatitudes, God has set before the Christian believer eight areas of promised blessing, eight things that God fully intends for His people to “be” in this life. As a teacher, I have, with tongue-in-cheek, dubbed them with the more proper title of “The “Be” Attitudes.” The dire question really for each one of us, as followers of Christ, is the choice either “To be, or not to be.” It is indeed a blessing to choose to be what God wants us to become, and conversely ,we must realize that it can inevitably lead to a divine curse if we continually and willfully go through life choosing to not embrace what God intends for us to become in His sight. It is my understanding that the primary purpose God has for the Beatitudes in the life of a believer is to pinpoint those necessary things that will draw us ever-closer to the Kingdom of God in its present manifestation on earth, and thereby cause us to move further away from the demonic influence of the kingdoms of this world.

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