Baptized Into Christ

In my previous post I shared what the Bible says Jesus saves us from.  But Jesus doesn't just save us  from those things, He also saves  for  a purpose. For what does Jesus save us? Jesus saves you for self-sacrificial love and humble service to others. (Philippians 2:3-13) Jesus saves you for serving out your vocation of wife. (Colossians 3:18) Jesus saves you for serving out your vocation of husband. (Colossians 3:19) Jesus saves you for serving out your vocation of child. (Colossians 3:20) Jesus saves you for serving out your vocation of parent. (Colossians 3:21) Jesus saves you for serving out your vocation of worker. (Colossians 3:22) Jesus saves you for serving out your vocation of employer. (Colossians 3:23) Jesus saves you for praying and praising God together with other Christians. (Colossians 3:16) Jesus saves you for doing the good works He has prepared for you. (Ephesians 2:10) Jesus saves you for the resurrection from death to life eve...

Often Christians speak of being "saved."  This is good, proper, and Biblical language, however it begs the question: saved from what? Well the Bible tells us the answer to that and it is helpful for us to know the answer because when we do, we will love Jesus more and have a deeper appreciation for what He has done for us. Jesus saves us from the eternal fire of hell. (Matthew 18:8-9). Jesus saves us from eternal separation from God. (Matthew 25:41) Jesus saves us from eternal punishment. (Matthew 25:46) Jesus saves us from suffering while knowing that others are enjoying the joys of heaven. (Luke 13:28) Jesus saves us from eternal destruction. (2 Thessalonians 1:9) Note that "destruction" here doesn't mean that those in hell are destroyed and cease to exist.  Think of it as more in terms of the opposite of construction.  They will be in eternal ruin.  Jesus saves us from a hell that is relentless in its agony.  (Mark 9:48) These are some of the et...

There was once a little branch.  The little branch had been a branch for as long as it could remember.  Day after day the little branch produced fruit that fed people.  Day after day the little branch, being fed by the vine to which it was connected, remained strong and healthy and was able to produce an abundance of fruit.  Day after day the fruit produced fed hungry people. “Isn’t it great that we are able to help people by the fruit that we produce?” an old, big branch said to the little branch.  “It is so wonderful,” the big branch continued “that the vine feeds us and because the vine feeds us we can feed others.” But the little branch wasn’t so sure.  “What do you mean, it’s great?  We’re wasting our time here connected to this vine.  We are the ones producing fruit after all!  That vine is just holding us back!  I don’t need the vine to produce fruit!  Besides, I don’t see your fruit!” The little branch, being...

There were many follow ups to "the dress" intrigue that captured the internet for a day.  One of the follow ups was this piece that details something I had heard about before, but had forgotten. Apparently ancient languages didn't have a word for blue.  There's no word for blue in ancient Hebrew, Greek, Japanese, or Chinese.  Based upon this oddity, some studies were done that seemed to show that without a word for blue, it appears that people actually do not see  blue. From the article... A researcher named Jules Davidoff traveled to Namibia to investigate this, where he conducted an experiment with the Himba tribe, which speaks a language that has no word for blue or distinction between blue and green.  When shown a circle with 11 green squares and one blue, they could not pick out which one was different from the others — or those who could see a difference took much longer and made more mistakes than would make sense to us, who can clearly spot ...