We hold in our hands the weight of eternity, [ the Bible ]. Jesus shows us in his word that the Saduccees did not believe in the resurrection. One day they came to ask Jesus a question to try to trick him into saying the wrong answer, this way they could have an accusation against him.

They said a woman was married to a man and that man died leaving her a widow, and no children. And to fulfill the obligation, his brother married her and he died also leaving her without children, and then one by one five other brothers married her and they all died and left her fruitless. They wanted to trick Jesus and so they said, "Lord, who's wife will she be in the resurrection." Many times we skip over passages of scripture and miss the little things. He said, "You do error in scripture and do not know the power of God".

Understand this, when you error in scripture you forfeit the power of God. When you misquote or misinterpret the word of God you cannot get power from the most High God, because God does not rule in error. So, the next time anyone asks you what did Jesus say, you will say, "You do error in scripture and know not the power of God, for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."

The Bible says in 2 Tim 2:15, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing [slicing] the word of truth. (NKJ)."

So the whole key in the scripture is "study to show". If you do not study you have nothing to show.

I am finding these days that people who say they are Christian do not live like Christians. They say things they don't mean and they do things contrary to the truth of God. I would like to give an illustration: Imagine having a movie projector screen placed in front of the wall, and the screen is new and white and clean, and then imagine behind that screen the wall is old, corroded and damaged. Let's just imagine also that the screen represents the righteousness of God, and Christ covers us with righteousness, but if you are out of God's righteousness, then the wall represents what is left of you, without Christ you become old, rusted and no good. But God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God.

To live the life of Christ is not easy but it is attainable. It's a hard life sometimes because God is going to ask you to make decisions that are very, very difficult, and he's going to ask you do things that are contrary to what you would do. He's going to ask you do die to yourself. The problem today is that Christians are looking to substitute things to appease their flesh. For example: They know they can't go to discos so they go hang out at the so called Christian bars that only serve juice 'til 4-5 o'clock in the morning, doing what? Having fellowship at 4-5 o'clock in the morning when you have to get up the next day to go to church. Then you go to church tired because you've been out fellowshipping all night. And that's just one thing that Christians do to appease their flesh. We must be careful not to fall into the trap of the devil, before you know it we will have Christian beer, Christian liquor, Christian disco, I know this may sound to the extreme, but you get the message don't you.

Some people say, "it's not good to have sex before you're married, granted that's good advice, but they don't stop there, what they say is, " but you can test each other out to see if you are compatible, so go ahead and rub and touch on each other a little bit, go ahead and make sexual advancements toward one another." People will say that's not the same as going to bed together. Well let me tell you, lust is lust. You may say that's crazy but there are Christians that actually participate in such relationships. The Word of God teaches us, " Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God". (Matthews 5:8) I can share some things about lust, because I was delivered from it, I can recognize the spirit of lust very quickly. I can tell when a man or woman is lusting in their heart or in their mind just by looking at them. There's a certain look that comes with lust and I won't touch on that right now.

To live the Christian life you're going to have to make some decisions that are not going to go with the popular stream of everyone else. As a matter of fact, when you become a real Christian, which means "Christ like", like the anointed one, than you will go against the stream. When everybody's going down stream you'll be going upstream. When everybody says come on. You'll say no, you come this way, I'm not going your way. And there are times that you are going to have to die to certain things that you love.

Just yesterday I was sharing with someone how I use to love to sit down and watch Star Wars. But one time as I was watching it the Lord opened my eyes to the evil characters in the movie. Like Jabba, the big fat demon that had Princess Leah captive tied up to a chain, his tongue hanging out and making all kinds of lustful gestures. I was watching this and Jesus was watching this with me. You see He lives in my body. I was so convicted, I couldn't watch this any more it was grieving him. I had to confess that sin to the Lord, "it's grieving you Lord, I said, I can't have this anymore but Lord, the truth is I like it, it doesn't bother me." But I could sense the Lord telling me, it bothers me. I had to give that up and die to that, so that I could please my Jesus. What is God asking you to give up right now?

The bible tells us that God has given us a tremendous power to overcome the system of the world, the system of the devil and the system of the flesh. I got a thought, as Christians we will all experience opposition from the enemy to the point of giving up. Jesus gives us the solution for all attacks and that is to submit yourselves to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Our trust must be in God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit in order to overcome the enemy. Trust is a must!

God has given us divine power in 2 Peter 1:3 says, "for his divine power has bestowed upon us all things that are requisite and suited to life in godliness through the full personal knowledge of him who called us by and to his own glory in excellence" (AMP). In other words, we have to understand that as Christians God has given us divine power to escape the corruption of the world. The bible tells us that this divine power is dwelling in us and it is contrary to the ungodly nature of our flesh. If you're not struggling as a Christian, beware you might be living in a carnal state.

To live the Christ like life is to live like Christ all the time not half the time, in every decision. I remember the time I was telling my wife, the bible tells us touch no unclean thing. And she said o.k. We went to the store to look for games for our son and we didn't want to buy anything that is ungodly, so we started looking through the video racks and some were very evil, like Doom etc. She said, honey look at this, and I said I can't touch that. She said, why? Because, it's an unclean thing. She said, don't worry about that. She picked up another one, and all of a sudden, it hit her. She became dizzy, and I told her....TOUCH NO UNCLEAN THING. You see, when you know, you've got to live it.

There is no way we can please God and live in the state of our sinful nature. There is no way we can get the riches of His divine power, and His divine nature to be active in our life, if we are still walloping in our sins. If you're content where you are, beware! God never calls us to be content with ourselves, but to be content with him. That means you are going to have to give up certain things to be Christ like.

I used to be the kind of Christian that wanted everyone to like me, but I found out that when you are living for the Lord not everyone is going to get along with you including other Christians. It's a shame but true. Jesus knew that everyone would not accept him in his time, but his desire was to please the Father not the crowd. He was more concerned with what his Father thought about him than what the people thought about him. Learning from his example, it really doesn't matter what people say about me anymore. If it means losing friends and losing relationships and losing businesses for the sake of Christ, because I want to be pure and holy, then let it be. I rather have this assurance, when I lay down at night Jesus will say, "I'm pleased with you, son."

There is great freedom when you come to the realization, that all you want to hear him say is, "I'm pleased with you". That is very powerful. This is the most comfortable state that you can be in, to know that God is pleased with you and pleased with the way you're living.

Secondly, the Lord has given us the divine nature of Christ in us.

Colossians 1:27, "To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery which is Christ in you the hope of glory." Could you imagine that the God that lives in you is glory and he has put that glory in you?

It is this glory that wants to come out of our lives and shine. I don't think that we really understand sometimes because we're human. That's why God gave pastors, so we can remind you that we are not perfect, because if anyone knows they're not perfect is true and sincere pastors. I don't know about you but I know what I am without God and I know what I'm capable of doing without God. I would be one very dangerous fellow, because if there is anything I know how to do is be a good sinner. But I got a degree from the Lord, I went from a bum to a bachelor, from dung to a doctor, I have a PhD in the Lord, Power from On High and I have the master of divinity living in my heart. I graduated for those who are interested from the University of SOTHS (School Of The Holy Spirit). PRAISE THE LORD. When I wanted to go to school and I'm not knocking education because I wanted to go to school, the Lord kept closing the doors in my face and said, "I'm going to teach you myself." I didn't understand why but there was a journey that the Lord just wanted to take me on and I could not prevent that. It was just his sovereign will in my life. I will tell you that nothing or nobody can take away from me what God has revealed in my spirit. It's too powerful I can't go back now to many people know about me.

There is this sister I know that God did a miracle for her, he fixed her teeth she did not have to go to the doctor. Do you know what that is? I'll tell you what that is, that's the divine power of God working. Her miracle is something that she can never deny, that's the divine power of God. And because that divine power lives in us, we are able to look right in the devil's face and say go to hell, Satan. We should never be afraid to tell Satan where to go. [Isn't it great that the devil does not have power over us anymore?]

Thirdly, the Lord has given us the divine fragrance of his knowledge through us. You are a fragrance to the Lord, 2 Cor. 2:14 "But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him. We have not only the divine nature, divine glory but we have a divine fragrance that flows out from us. Are you a fragrant? When you come around people do they say, "Oh Hallelujah I'm glad you came by, you refresh me." Or when you knock on the door, they go, "oh no, here they come again put on your gossip slippers." I don't know about you but my prayer is Lord when they see me coming let them fear you. I am an ambassador for Christ, you are an ambassador for Christ because there's a fragrance that comes out from your life.

His divine power has given us everything we need. There's no sense in you going before God, saying Lord "I need this and I need that to overcome the devil, God says, "I already gave you everything that you need". What is everything you need for? For life and godliness through our knowledge of Him. The only reason Christians are defeated is because they don't know that the devil has been de-feeted. And if you don't know that then he has you blinded. But when you know the truth you can kick him where he lives.

The word divine in the Hebrew simply means, "God like" or the God - Head and I like that because the connotation means that you have the Godhead living in you. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Now if God has given us grace and he surely has given us grace because the bible talks about the throne of grace, then His grace and his throne is in my heart and that's where he dwells. How can I be defeated if eternity is on my side? We hear people say, "God is on my side, well let's just correct that, we're on his side and because we're on his side, He takes our side. The bible says, "if God is for us who can be against us", but the reason no one can be against us is because we came on God's side. You have to come to Christ and like I mentioned earlier, remember when you error in scripture you nullify the power of God in your life. So if you don't know you're not going anywhere. It's so simple.

The word divine also has the connotation in the Greek word, "Theos" which we get the word God. And theos is interesting because it means the deity of God the supreme divinity, the very God who created the heavens, who created the earth is living in your body.

One time, some people came to Jesus and he threw them all out of whack. Have you ever thrown a monkey wrench and threw everything into confusion. He said, "haven't you read that ye are gods?" But he was actually saying, don't you know that you have the power to judge and distinguish what God has already established? Don't you know that you have that divine power? How come we let the devil deceive us so easily? What I don't understand, is how we can't understand that we are creatures of deception. And we deceive ourselves, because we allow the enemy to deceive us with his lies. The only reason he deceives us with lies is because we don't know the truth. But as we look back at the word "theos", here is some scriptures associated with that word:

"The virgin will be with a child and will give birth to a son and they shall call him Emmanuel, which means God with us (Theos with us, in us)." (Matthew 1:23) Are you pregnant with Jesus today? I gave birth to Jesus, that's why I have this ministry. This ministry is not called Jeremias. You don't come here to see Jeremias, you come here because Jesus is here. God in us, God upon us.

As soon as Jesus was baptized he went up out of the water at that moment heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, like lightning upon him. How many know that you have a lightning looking God living inside you. When the devil comes at you just throw a little lightning bolt against him, the word of God.

For we have not received the spirit of fear, but of power, love and sound mind. The word "power" is donamis, which is where we get the word "dynamite". In other words, when the devil comes at you just blow up. Speaking in tongues, praise the Lord, Worship him, just blow up you have donamis power in you.

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ the son of the living God (Theos)." When the enemy comes and he sees me coming, he sees the Son of God coming.

2 Peter 1:5, For this very reason adding to or adding your diligence to the divine promises employ every effort in exercising your faith. To develop virtue, excellence, resolution Christian energy and in exercising virtue, develop knowledge. Now the word "knowledge here means intelligence, but I want to touch on that a little bit because sometimes our intelligence can get in the way of the power of God. Intelligence is God given, but intelligence is not to try to figure out who God is, but to be able to sift through what is of God and what is not of God. So whenever you hear a person say that someone is very intelligent that means they have the spirit of discernment and they can discern what is of God and what is not.

The word diligence here means eagerness forwardness, haste. In other words, make haste to grow in the spirit, don't stop, keep going make it your ambition to thrive towards Jesus to be like Jesus. Like Paul said, "I want to know Christ".

There was a man who was very well educated, he had a doctrine degrees, he sat under a great philosopher and all that he learned came to amount to nothing when comparing it in knowing who Christ is. To live the Christian life is so simple when you start dying and stop trying.

For this reason, add to your faith your credence, your mortal convictions add virtue. The word virtue there means excellence. To your faith add excellence. I was teaching today that the word faith for us is an action word. But faith is not void of fact. We meet a lot of Christians that say, "I know God is going to give me this because I have faith" and when you know that what they're asking for is not of God, you wonder what makes them pronounce such a confession.

If you have faith and your full of fact you have faith. Faith is not blind, who said faith was blind? The word of God tells us that faith comes from hearing the word of God. Isn't the word of God fact? Is the word of God empty? So therefore, you have to get some word in your intelligence, in your mind, which is fact in order to have faith, so therefore faith has to be full of fact. And when you have acquired this kind of faith, "he says, add virtue to it. When you have acquired this excellence, this virtue, he says add knowledge to it and the word knowledge means, science. In other words, know who you serve and know how he works. God has a science to him that is so awesome that the scientists miss it.

The bible tells us in Isaiah "he sits on the circle of the earth". And his word is like the rain that comes down and goes back up. Herbert Spencer, was hailed because he put the earth and all it's existence in 5 things. He said, everything is made of time, force, action, span and matter and they hailed him for that. Well, my bible says, in the book of Genesis Chap. 1:1, In the beginning "time", God "force", created "action", the heavens "the spans" and the earth "matter". The very first chapter, the very first verse puts his theory to sleep.

And to knowledge add temperance, control. How many Christians do we see out of control? Christians are not satisfied where they are they're running like a chicken without a head and making decisions without prayer. And temperance add patience. Patience, do you have patience? When you think about the word patience you think, patience. We think we must wait and don't move, don't resist. The word patience here in the Greek means cheerful. Be cheerful. When things don't go your way, be cheerful. And to patience add godliness and the word godliness there mean holiness, to be well reverent. Don't just throw the name of Jesus anywhere because it comes out of your mouth. A lot of us use the name of the Lord in vain, a lot of us do things and we have no reverence for the Lord. We allow things in our homes and things in our lives that the Lord is not pleased with. And to godliness add brotherly kindness, which we get the word Philadelphia, which simply means "brotherly love". A strong affection of love, he says add it and to that he says add charity. Agape love, the greatest love. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. So that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life." And he says this love binds all these ingredients together.

So to live the true Christ like life is simply to be like Christ in every aspect of the word. With your finances, with your relationship, with your thoughts, with your speech, with your actions. This is God's definition of love,

1 Cor 13:1-8
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.

To all this he says, add love. If you have a problem with one of these virtues of love, pray because I have failed each and everyone of them and everyday I fail. Everyday I fall short, everyday I disappoint my Jesus, but everyday I run back to his arms. Everyday I take time with him that I just spend with him, whether it's in my car, in the park, in the room, I have to take time to be with my Jesus. I have put something into my life that I do daily now. I have communion with the Lord everyday. I eat the bread and drink the wine (grape juice) every day. I do this to remind me that I must die, that I must die to myself in order to life for Christ. Swallow death everyday and the drink of his life everyday. We're not content just being Christians, and with just being with Jesus or being just like Jesus. We want to be more than Jesus.

A lot of people are going around manifesting this and doing this and being very spiritual and I don't see that kind of Jesus in the Bible. How come we try to outdo Jesus? If no one prophesies to you, if no one tells you "I have a word from God for you" are you satisfied? If you didn't hear God for 13 years would you be satisfied? If He never spoke to you again, would you be satisfied? Do you have enough of the revelation of Christ in you to last you a lifetime, if He never spoke to you again? If they put you in jail and took away your bible do you have enough word in your heart to feed your spirit for the rest of your life? Because that's what it's going to come to, you may be put in jail or perhaps be killed for your faith. We have not yet suffered to the point of shedding blood. But if you did would you go willingly?

Let's look at Paul, this guard walking down the corridors of the jail and going down into a hole and lowering down a rope. Then Paul ties the rope around him and they pull him up out of this darkness and he has not seen the light for months. As he's coming up the light of the sun is hitting his eyes, so he doesn't see who's lifting him up, they grab him by his arms and they lead him down the corridor out into that stadium and put his head on a chopping block and they chop off his head for his faith and he does it willingly, because he knows that the one he's been serving has a crown of righteousness for him. That's faith. That's the Christ life. To live for God is the most awesome thing you can ever do; if you never prophesy again, if you never raise any one from the dead just living for Him should be enough.

John the Baptist never did one miracle, yet he burned like fire. He may never have laid hands and healed anyone, but he knew the God of Israel was with him. Are you satisfied with your Christian life, stop trying to get all you can from God and get God all you can. When the trials and tribulations come, the only thing that's going to matter is, "do you know Jesus". Do you know him? Have you feasted on the Lamb? Have you eaten of Jesus? Have you had time with Him? Do you know how His heart beats? Do you know what makes Him angry? Do you know what makes Him sad? Do you know what makes Him happy? Do you know what makes Him glad? When you come to that point, I guarantee you that you will take your eyes and your focus off of everything else in this world and put it on Jesus and He will be the only one that you will want to desire with a burning to grab a hold of Him and never let him go. There is nothing greater than that.

Be pure, be righteous in all that you do, because this is what love is. If you have ever read this Chapter before, what love is and what love isn't look at it from this light (substitute the word love for God). God is love, He is not rude, He's always kind, He never boasts, He never keeps records of wrongs. When you love you learn to forgive, or there will be bitterness in your heart and some of us need to ask for forgiveness because we've been rude. There are some of us that need to repent because we've been self-seeking. The Lord says, if you don't live for him and if you don't have the word and if you don't live his word you're nothing but a clanging cymbal, just making noise. You can profess to have all the faith in the world and say I can move this mountain, but have not love you gain nothing. The only thing that's going to matter is when you go before the throne of God on that day, and Jesus stands with you on that day and he tells you "Good and faithful servant". We will stand alone and he will commend you before all the angels, and Paul, Peter and all the saints that wrote in this book the eternal word of God because they will standing there. We need to set some priorities right in our lives. I want more of Jesus now than I ever have before in my life. Grab a hold of this, don't ever become so hard that you can't worship him, don't ever become so selfish that you can't do for him.

I met a man that was in a church for 20 years because he was raised there, and he told me that his father used to be the pastor of the church. I asked him what was his father like and he said, "my father was a Christian". That was so powerful. The impact that this man left on his son was so powerful.

Let us also, make an impact on those around us, and be reminded of His word in John 3:30, "He must increase, but I must decrease."