Question: Is being holy even possible, since only God is holy?

The word saints in the N.T. Greek means holy ones and that is what we are in the anointed one Jesus. We are not holy but the spirit of the anointed one and the spirit of God is. We are not righteous, but the spirit of the anointed one Jesus and the spirit of God is.

Notice: 

Romans 8:9-11: But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the SPIRIT OF GOD dwell in you. Now if any man have not the SPIRIT OF THE ANOINTED ONE, he is none of his. And IF THE ANOINTED ONE BE IN YOU, the body is dead because of sin; but THE SPIRIT IS LIFE BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS [NOT OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS BUT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD AND HIS ANOINTED ONE]. But IF THE SPIRIT OF HIM that raised up Jesus from the dead DWELL IN YOU, He that raised up the anointed one from the dead shall also make alive your mortal bodies by HIS SPIRIT THAT DWELLS IN YOU.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and WE will come unto him, and make our abode with him [by the spirit of God/the spirit of Jesus].

2 Corinthians 6:16............ you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Amazing grace: It is the indwelling of the spirit of God and the spirit of His beloved son Jesus that gives us a status of righteousness. It is all of them and nothing of us and yet the scripture says that if we have the spirit of God/spirit of the anointed one in us we are saints - holy ones.

We all as followers of the lord Jesus and his God and his Father; need to realize how much power we have access to by being indwelt by both our God and his precious son Jesus. Jesus said:

John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

When he went to his Father he sent down the promised spirit that he told the disciples to wait for and to use and do what he commanded them to do....

Luke 24:46-49: And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the anointed one to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but wait in the city of Jerusalem, until you be endued with power from on high.

Do we realize that we all now possess this power from on high, that it indwells all who believe in the one whom God has sent and who live by the message that he brought. So where is that power being used today? Where is the good news message being preached as Jesus preached it, with the sign that accompanied his preaching? Did he not say that we who go forth preaching the good news and living out his message would do greater works than he did during his ministry. Why do we not experience that same power working in us and through us? It is because we have so little faith to exercise what we have been given!

Jesus said if we have the faith we can anything in him....

Luke 17:6 And the Lord said, If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you might say unto this sycamine tree, be you plucked up by the root, and be you planted in the sea; and it would obey you.

If we are truly walking by the leading of the spirit of Jesus and God that indwells us we will be exercising faith obedience to all he has told us to do. We will be living our lives for him in everything and in doing so grow in faith as we experience the joy of walking on the narrow path that leads to new age life, resurrection life now. Do we not realize that the same power that upholds the universe indwells us and we are to use that power to do the works that God called us to do!

Eph 2:10 For we are His workmanship as new creations in the anointed one Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.

Was Elijah taken up to heaven?

If Elijah went to heaven as most people believe then how could he have written a letter to the king of Israel some years later?

Notice that this was written after he was taken up into the clouds and transported to some other place on this earth....

2 Chronicles 21:12: and there comes in unto him a writing from Elijah the prophet, saying, ‘Thus said Yehovah, God of David your father, Because that you [Jehoram] have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father, and in the ways of Asa king of Judah, Interesting, this was some time after he was taken up, check out the time frame. He began his ministry with King Ahab... follow the time line and you will see he was not taken up to heaven to the place that God inhabits. He was taken up into the atmosphere, air, and transported to another place on this earth. Much the same as Phillip was transported by the power of the holy spirit as we see in the NT.

"Does 1 Peter 3:21 teach that baptism is necessary for salvation?"

The question is: "Does 1 Peter 3:21 teach that baptism is necessary for salvation?"

Notice 1 Peter 3:18 For the anointed one also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit:

verse: 21:.......even baptism does also now save us..... by the resurrection of Jesus the anointed one:

Notice: Matthew 20:22: But Jesus answered and said,...... are you able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I will be baptized with? [speaking of his death as a sacrificial sin offering]. By his death we are reconciled to God and by his resurrection we in him have the opportunity to enter into the coming new age as glorified immortal men/women.

What happens when we obey the command of Jesus to be baptized?

Romans 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death - death to self, death to the sins of the flesh: that like as the anointed one was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life - resurrection life, new age life [living by the spirit of truth - the spirit of Jesus living in us.

Again: Colossians 2:12: [We are] Buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised him from the dead.

Peter also says: Acts 2:38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus the anointed one for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the holy spirit.

Baptism of and by itself will not save anyone.

What does save us?

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Amen! By the grace of God we are saved. It is God's grace that if given to us that is His free gift that enables us to exercise the faith that saves!

Question: How can I, as a Muslim, be assured of paradise?

Answer: First we need to define what Paradise means in the scriptural revelation of God. Acts 3:19-21 states:

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

So here we see that when Jesus returns form heaven there will be a restitution of all things back to what they were before Adam sinned, rebelled against God. At that time this world will undergo a makeover that will be a Paradise. Jesus said the meek shall inherit this earth, so the reward of the saved is to inherit this earth with Jesus and to co-rule over the nations with him in the newly established Theocratic Government that will be established in Jerusalem with Jesus sitting on the throne of David ruling over Israel and all the nations who will come up from year to year to keep the feast of Tabernacles and pay homage to Jesus and his God and his Father - YHVH

See Zechariah 14:16 ¶ And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. Read all of Isaiah chapter 11 which shows what the life in the new age will be all about. Truly, it will as much a Paradise as Adam and Eve lived in before they were caste out of the garden, and the whole earth went through a dramatic change to that now the scriptures reveal that all of creation is waiting for the sons of God to be revealed so that things can get back to the way there were before Adam rebelled.

Romans 8:16-22: The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with the anointed one; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us [when we are resurrected and inherit this earth with Jesus]. For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope, because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.

What a glorious future we have waiting for us in the Paradise we will have as our inheritance from our God and to have this as our when we are resurrected to rise up and meet the lord Jesus in the air and to be with him for ever more, ruling and serving him in the Theocratic Government he will be the head seated on the throne of David in Zion, where God has placed His name - YHVH forever! That is the Paradise that all who believe in the lord Jesus are going to inherit! Amazing future, amazing Grace!

HOW TO OVERCOME SIN

All sin is against God and as a result when we do sin we need to deeply repent of sinning against Him. We can only overcome our sinful nature by dying to self and committing ourselves completely to Him. As followers of the lord Jesus we are his slaves bought and paid for by his shed blood and as his slaves we are slaves to righteousness.

Whatever God commands us to do, through the words He gave to Jesus to give to us, comes with a promise. What is that promise? It is the promised power of His Spirit working in us and through us enabling us to do what He commands us to do. The power is always available, but we need to die to self in order to use it fully. When we realize that we have become new creations in the lord Jesus, who is the beginning of God's new creation, new humanity, we will draw upon the power of God's Spirit to live out our lives victoriously in him. If self is holding you back from totally committing to the lord Jesus, reckon self to be dead.

Realize that when you walked into the waters of baptism you were walking into the death of self, that you died with God's anointed one Jesus. When you came up out of the water you did so in newness of life, as a new creation, having received God's Spirit to enable you to be renewed in you mind and as a new creation to witness to others God's amazing grace. To get rid of self is to become God-centered in all you do! Jesus did just that! We should follow in his steps, and become a man/woman after God's own heart, reflecting His nature to all we come in contact with!

GOD EXISTS

The following proves that God not only exists but upholds the Universe so life can be maintained here on earth. Give me some feedback on this article if you think it is not accurate!!

Through the astounding photos produced by the Hubble Space Telescope we have glimpsed wonders in the universe previously not imagined. We have been able to peer billions of years back in time to see the formation of suns and galaxies. We have gazed across countless light-years of distance at marvels we could never visit in a billion lifetimes of travel. For decades we have scanned the skies with powerful radio telescopes looking for transmissions indicating the presence of intelligent life. And in all this time, and with all this effort, what have we found?

We’ve found zero evidence of intelligent physical life beyond our planet; or of any other physical life at all, for that matter. And considering the astounding distances involved; the star nearest us, Alpha Centauri, is 4.367 light-years away (more than 276,000 times the distance from earth to the sun!); there’s no way any of us will visit a planet outside our solar system anytime during this physical life.

As human civilization advances and we reach out into the cosmos, we are met with a deafening, reverberating silence. Nevertheless, the dramatic, headlining article from the March 2019 National Geographic magazine boldly proclaims, “We Are Not Alone.”

From such a matter-of-fact title statement, one might gather that evidence of alien life forms has finally been found! The article boasts, “New discoveries reveal it’s almost certain we’re not alone in the universe.” However, the opposite is in fact true.

There is not one scrap of material or observational evidence that indicates the existence of physical life in the universe outside of planet earth.

The article, for its part, focuses on the various attempts to find alien life, giving an insightful look at the amazing precision technologies developed to that end. Over the last 60 years, governments and scientists have invested billions of dollars in hundreds of experiments, generating a staggering amount of data that has been pored over, consuming untold hours of human and computing resources—all with the possibility of detecting alien life as a primary motivator.

These endeavors have yielded a great deal of scientific knowledge revealing the wonder and majesty of God’s creation, and have also resulted in rapid advancements in consumer technology as a side benefit; but they’ve been fruitless in finding physical life outside of our planet. In the total absence of evidence, why does the scientific “certainty” of alien life persist undaunted? Where does man’s fascination with life outside of our planet come from? Does the Bible inform us at all concerning other life forms in the universe? The Word of God holds surprising answers!

What makes a planet “habitable”?

The discoveries touted by National Geographic are based on conclusions from the Kepler Space Telescope’s mission to identify exo-planets; planets outside of our solar system. Over the last decade, the mission has yielded impressive results. Kepler’s analysis focused on a small area of space containing 150,000 stars, and discovered about 4,000 exoplanets. This is tremendous progress, considering that the first conclusive exo-planet discovery was in 1995—just 24 years ago!

Scientists now widely agree that our universe is fine-tuned for life—that physical life wouldn’t be able to exist at all if certain constants like the relative strengths of the different forces or the rate of the expansion of the universe were different to even the slightest degree. In the study of exo-planets, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the earth itself is fine-tuned for life.

Life on earth is tenacious, often appearing in even the most impossible 

habitats our planet can muster. But in comparison to the harsh environments of space, it becomes clear that life in fact needs just the right conditions to survive. No one expects to find living organisms in the empty vacuum between planets and stars, or on the unimaginably hot surface of a star or within the crushing gravity of a black hole. Life is only considered viable on planets within a narrow range of characteristics.

There is widespread disagreement over these characteristics, and the classification of currently known exo-planets as “habitable” is highly speculative. The word itself conjures up the image of an earth-like environment, but in its current astronomical usage it is based on rough parameters that by no means guarantee life could actually survive.

These, by necessity, include only quantities we can measure from earth via telescope, including the distance of a planet from its star and the intensity of radiation and heat coming from its star. Other relevant factors include the size of the planet, the nature of its orbit and the composition of the planet. For example, some planets are tidally locked to their star as our moon is to earth, meaning only one side of the planet ever receives light. This would result in wild extremes of hot and cold as opposed to the much milder seasonal temperatures across the earth’s surface.

As scientists further evaluate the question of habitability, more and more specific earth-like criteria are added. It’s also speculated that the best chances for life will be on a planet with a rocky surface, an atmosphere that’s neither too thick nor too thin and that has liquid water on the surface.

Applying all of these factors to the 4,000 or so exo-planets we know of dramatically reduces the number of “habitable” planets to about a dozen. But even this is deceptive, because there may be any number of currently unknown factors preventing a planet from actually being capable of nurturing life.

The necessity of a beginning—and a First Cause

The time was January 1931. The meeting took place above the mountains overlooking Los Angeles in southern California. Two eminent scientists would come together here, one a physicist and the other an astronomer; Albert Einstein and Edwin Hubble. One of the great secrets of the universe was about to be confirmed; and this finding, along with others that followed, has a lot to do with you and me.

Einstein had traveled from Germany to the United States to peer through the largest telescope in the world, the 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory. He wanted to see the mounting evidence for himself. He wanted to confirm if the findings that the universe was expanding were correct or not. Edwin Hubble showed him photographic plates of distant galaxies and other evidence that pointed to a cosmos that was expanding outward in every direction. A remote galaxy receding is marked by its light being shifted to the red end of the spectrum. The farther away the galaxy appears, the more pronounced is the redness of its light.

A newsreel of the time showed Einstein looking into the telescope and then declaring, “I now see the necessity of a beginning.” Those were momentous words, for then scientists the world over had to seriously contemplate the idea that the universe had a beginning—with its theistic implications of a divine Creator. Even Einstein, like most scientists before him, had thought the universe was stationary and eternal. But now the incontrovertible evidence of outward expansion indicated a beginning point to this expansion—a point of origin. Scientists would have to reexamine their own beliefs and ponder the beginning of the cosmos—and the possibility of a Beginner who had caused it all to emerge out of nothing!

Other related findings came later in the 20th century, such as the faint cosmic microwave background, thought to be a remnant of the universe’s formation, and the discovery that the universe’s expansion is accelerating, which some have proposed is due to the gravitational effects of mysterious dark matter and energy.

In any case, extrapolating backward from the expansion brings everything down to a single moment when the cosmos appeared out of nothing. Hardly anyone in academia at the time had expected that result—though it was written in the first verse of the Bible thousands of years before: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

Perhaps the scientist who best expressed this startling discovery was the famous astronomer and former NASA director, the late Robert Jastrow. He candidly admitted: “A sound explanation may exist for the explosive birth of our Universe; but if it does, science cannot find out what the explanation is. The scientist’s pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth.’ It is unexpected because science has had such extraordinary success in tracing the chain of cause and effect backward in time.

“Now we would like to pursue that inquiry farther back in time, but the barrier to further progress seems insurmountable. It is not a matter of another year, another decade of work, another measurement, or another theory; at this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries” (God and the Astronomers, 1978, p. 116).

Through physics and astronomical observation, Einstein and Hubble were providing evidence for the universe having a beginning and, without intending it, pointing to a First Cause that had brought it all about.

The fine-tuning of the universe

Yet scientists were very uncomfortable with these results that led to a Creator God. Even the great British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington remarked in 1931: “I have no ax to grind in this discussion, but the notion of a beginning is repugnant to me . . . The expanding universe is preposterous . . . incredible . . . it leaves me cold” (quoted by Robert Jastrow, “Have Astronomers Found God?” New York Times Magazine, June 25, 1978, p. 5, emphasis added throughout).

Clearly, those in the academic scientific community were not about to give up!

But things would become yet more uncomfortable as evidence began to pile up; as it continues to do today;  for exquisitely calibrated laws governing the entire universe.

The physicist Brandon Carter coined the term “anthropic principle” in 1973 in reference to our man centered, fine tuned universe, its many physical laws and constants carefully balanced and coordinated to allow for us to exist.

More recently, author Eric Metaxas wrote the following in The Wall Street Journal: “Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life; every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart.

“Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing. Yet here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for it?

Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Doesn’t assuming that an intelligence created these perfect  conditions require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being?

“There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces; gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ nuclear forces; were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction; by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000; then no stars could have ever formed at all.

“Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all ‘ just happened’ defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?” (“Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God,” Dec. 25, 2014).

The Bible laid out the truth long ago

Thanks to advanced telescopes, some that orbit the earth, and other technological breakthroughs, we have come to three great certainties:

1) the universe had a beginning;

2) it is rapidly expanding; and

3) it is fine-tuned and fit for life.

Is it just a coincidence that the Bible described these three scientific discoveries thousands of years ago? Let’s take a look at a listing of verses to see this.

The origin of the universe as described in the Bible

● Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

● Psalm 33:6: “By the word of Yehovah the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.”

● Psalm 148:4-6: “Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of Yehovah, for He commanded and they were created. He also established them forever and ever; He made a decree which shall not pass away.”

● John 1:1-3: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. It was in the beginning with God. All things were made through it, and without it nothing was made that was made.”

● Romans 1:18-20: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities; his eternal power and divine nature; have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse”.

● Hebrews 1:1-2: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.”

The expansion of the universe described in Scripture

● Job 9:8: “He alone spreads out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea.”

● Psalms 104:1-2: “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Yehovah my God, You are very great: You are clothed with honor and majesty, who cover Yourself with light as with a garment, who stretch out the heavens like a curtain.”

● Isaiah 40:22: “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.”

● Isaiah 42:5: “Thus says God Yehovah, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk on it.”

● Isaiah 45:12: “I have made the earth, and created man on it. I; My hands; stretched out the heavens, and all their host I have commanded.”

● Jeremiah 10:12: “He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens at His discretion.”

The fine-tuning of the universe in the Bible

● Job 38:33: “Do you know the laws that govern the heavens, and can you make them rule the earth?”

● Psalm 119:89-91: “O Yehovah, your word is established in heaven forever. Your faithfulness endures throughout every generation. You set the earth in place, and it continues to stand. All things continue to stand today because of your regulations, since they are all your servants”.

● Jeremiah 31:35-37: “Yehovah provides the sun to be a light during the day. He orders the moon and stars to be lights during the night. He stirs up the sea so that its waves roar. His name is the Lord of Armies. This is what Yehovah says: Only if these laws stop working, declares Yehovah, will Israel’s descendants stop being a nation in my presence. This is what Yehovah says: Only if the heavens could be measured or the foundations of the earth could be searched, would I ever reject all of Israel’s descendants because of  everything that they have done, declares Yehovah”

● Jeremiah 33:25-26: “This is what the Lord says: Suppose I hadn’t made an arrangement with day and night or made laws for heaven and earth. Then I would reject the descendants of Jacob and of my servant David. I would not let any of David’s descendants rule the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. However, I will restore their fortunes and love them”.

The fine-tuning of the universe and you

We have only briefly covered the evidence that points to these three great discoveries about the cosmos in the last century. We are blessed with more information now than at any other time in history to come to a reasonable conclusion about the existence of a Creator God who brought forth this universe from nothing, orchestrated its elegant expansion in space and made it fit for life; human life, yours and mine; through His fine-tuned laws.