The Living Truth Fellowship

Rage Against God

Since his fall from grace through Adam, mankind has been separated from God. This is true for all except those who’ve been saved. This separation has been more than just a cool estrangement. The Bible tells us that it is a hostility. It tells us that a worldly person is at enmity with God; that he does not submit to God’s law, and neither can he. Why does this world vehemently reject God’s goodness and despise his son, Jesus Christ. Because light hates darkness. 

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19)

Join us to understand this spiritual reality from scripture.

Jesus Messiah

Jesus Messiah. Jesus, God’s Anointed. Jesus Christ. Did you know that Christ is not Jesus’s last name? It’s not, yet for the majority of Christians, this is the unwitting assumption. The fact is, Christ, Christos in the Greek, means what Meshiac in the Hebrew means - ANOINTED. 

Jesus is God’s Anointed. He was sent to carry out God’s plan for salvation. As Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:15 - “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”

This is Jesus the Messiah. Savior of mankind. God’s only begotten Son.

Resurrection

As we look at the resurrection of God’s only begotten son and some of the following concepts: death, life, judgment, forgiveness, redemption. We look at the life of Jesus Christ and how God raised him from the dead by promise from the Old Testament. And just as God was faithful to fulfill his promise in Jesus, He will do so for us, his children. Our hope is assured!

Homosexuality & Transgenderism

Our culture has all but embraced homosexuality and transgenderism. Since God created man, God should have a say so in this discussion. Today we look at these two concepts and we look at God’s original creative intent behind mankind and behind his sexuality. This teaching will help in bringing a proper understanding to God’s intent.

Agency

In the ancient cultures of the Middle East, there was a concept we know as Agency. The central notion of agency is this: that one person would send another as a representative to carry out his bidding with all the authority of the sender. In this teaching we look at this concept in the relationship between God and his son Jesus Christ.

Biblical Servitude

In our contemporary world, the idea of Service often has a bad connotation. People tend to associate it with diminished value and a lack of self-worth. But from a scriptural perspective, a person simply will not go far with the Lord unless he or she learns first to be a servant. From the prophet delivering the Lord’s message, to the pastor trending the Lord’s sheep, the practical Christian walk is defined by Service. As Jesus said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” Service is the heartbeat of every disciple of Christ.

The Walk of Humility

The Bible teaches, “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Pridefulness, also called self-righteousness, is the affliction of the natural man and carnal Christian alike going back to Adam’s rebellion. “Better to be lowly in spirit,” scripture continues, “and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.” 

Pride’s only antidote to Pride is Humility. Humility to God. Humbleness is a quality shared by all godly men and women. It was said of Moses then he was more humble than any other man. Jesus never promoted himself but emptied himself of the l reputation and did the Father’s will. 

Enjoy this wonderful teaching on Humility that will surely bless you!

Matthew 6 and 7

These two chapters are the latter part of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. He shares in them the wonderful wisdom of God on a variety of topics; among them is Jesus’s instruction to “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” Herein is the secret to the godly life – to seek Him above all. This represents the difference between true relationship and mere religion; and in response to doing this, God promises to provide for us all our needs. Enjoy this uplifting and illuminating teaching by Jon Touchstone.

The Value of Godliness

The Epistle of Titus starts: “Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness…” Godliness is a genuine, true relationship with our God. It is so far beyond mere religion. To the world, the person who talks to God is considered devout, but he that says that God talks to him is ready for the looney bin, but the truth is, the believer should be hearing from God often. Godliness is the objective of the spiritual walk – to not just know of God, but to know and understand Him.

Who was Hezekiah

Hezekiah was a king of Judah. He ruled for 30 years between 716 and 686 BCE. He was one of the few kings “who did right in the sight of God.” Hezekiah did several notable things that set him apart from other, lesser kings. The first was to clean the temple thoroughly upon his coronation of all the idols his father, Ahaz, had filled it with. Secondly, he broke his alliance with Assyria and then proceeded to stand against the Assyrian king when Judah was subsequently invaded. Though he was not a perfect man, Hezekiah believed God and stood for him when all seemed lost.

The Church of the Spirit

When we talk about Christianity, we must be clear with our terms. By far the majority of Christians throughout the world are cultural Christians. This simply means that Christianity has become engrained within their cultures, and faith is something one does. He wears the label “Christian,” but the label has more to do with his family background and upbringing than any personal conviction that Jesus is Lord. Of those who remain, the church separates into two distinct categories – those who live and worship according to the flesh and those who live and worship according to the spirit. It’s this latter church that is the true, biblical Church. It’s the church of power, the one that Paul preached. It worships God in spirit and in truth, and it is bound to its Lord, the Ascended and Glorified Christ, who rules with power at the right hand of the Father as the Head of the Church.
 
Spend some time with us learning about this magnificent Church.

Original Sin

Original Sin. It’s more correctly called, Adam’s Sin. The Humanist will call it, The Human Condition. Whatever the name, it describes the moral and spiritual degeneracy that afflicts all of humankind. So why is humanity, endowed with such intelligence and ability and created in the very Image of God, so depraved and destructive as a race? Is it a lack of philosophy or political acuity, as some would claim, or is it something deeper?
 
Study the scriptures with us as we delve into this interesting and vitally important topic.

The First Epistle of Peter

This letter was written to encourage the scattered Christians to maintain hope while suffering. The intended recipients of 1 Peter were facing significant hardships as a result of social and governmental opposition to their faith in Christ. In this Study of 1 Peter 1 and 2, Peter reminds these believers to stand fast, to endure persecution, to seek holiness and remember that it was through the precious blood of Christ that they are saved.

Matters of the Heart

Why is the heart important? Well, from a biological point of view, it sustains life. Without the heart pumping the life-giving blood, the body would quickly die.

The same is true spiritually. The heart is the well-spring of life. When it is allowed to become infirm with sin, a person’s spiritual life quickly deteriorates. This is why God, our concerned heavenly parent, tells us to guard our hearts with all our diligence, since he knows from it come the issuance of life.

Jon Touchstone teaches this timely message on the importance of the heart.

The Gospel of Christ

The word gospel literally means “good news” and is used 93 times in the New Testament. In Greek, it’s the word euaggelion, from which we get our English words evangelist, evangel, and evangelical. Specifically, the gospel is the good news of Christ’s salvation to the world:

1.) That God so loved the world that he gave his only son to die for our sin.

2.) That our salvation, eternal life and home in heaven are all guaranteed through Christ.

3.) That we simply cannot earn our salvation; that work of redemption and justification has already been completed on the cross.

4.) That we, former enemies of God, have been reconciled by the blood of Christ and adopted into the family of God.

5.) That “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Family of God

The Bible tells us that Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God. This fact is important for many reasons, not the least of which is that, as God’s son, Jesus is a member of God’s family. This is a spectacular truth to consider: God, creator of the heavens and the earth, has a family. And not only is Jesus a member of this family, but Romans 8 tells us that he is “the firstborn among many brethren.” Who are these brethren, you might ask? Well, they are you and me. In fact, anyone who is born-again of God’s spirit becomes a permanent member of this Household of God. What a humbling truth for the Christian – that this magnificent God is our Father, and this wonderful Lord and Savior is our big brother.
 
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1)

The Book of Titus

The Book of Titus is a letter Paul wrote in AD 63 to one of his faithful ministers, a man named Titus, a fellow-laborer who Paul left on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean to complete a work he had previously started.

This Pastoral Epistle tells of Titus’s assignment regarding this Church at Crete – to “set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city.” This task was more than just an administrative responsibility – it was spiritually significant. Titus was to find those among the Cretan Christian population who were uniquely qualified to become Elders within the Church, and who would preach the Gospel and stand against both the legalists, known as Judaizers, who sought to force this fledgling assembly to abandon Grace and following the Mosaic Law, as well as the decadent local cultural norms. This is a recurring theme throughout the epistles of Titus.

The Book of Titus deserves our attention as we look to the Bible for instruction on how to live a life pleasing to our Lord. We can learn what we should avoid as well as that which we are to strive to imitate. Paul suggests we seek to be pure as we avoid the things which will defile our minds and consciences. As Christians, we must examine ourselves to be sure our lives line up with our profession of faith in Christ (2 Corinthians 13:5).

The One Body

As Christians, individually, Christ is in each one of us – hence the name, Christian, meaning Christ-In. And we, both individually and as a Church, are in Christ, “In Christo.” This phrase signifies something dynamic, and not static; it signifies life and growth. Most importantly, it signifies union. We are in union with Christ. God provided this unchangeable reality of the new birth for each Christian. This union provides us, as scripture says, with God’s increase – righteousness, power, wisdom. It’s the very essence of what Christianity is.

You Love Righteousness and Hate Wickedness

Scripture states that Jesus “loved righteousness and hated wickedness.” That’s amazing. This phrase defines in a nutshell what it means to be a followers of the Lord Jesus. As he did, so are we as his followers to “love righteousness and hate wickedness.”

In this regard, complacency is our enemy. When we are complacent, the black and white precision of righteousness and wickedness fades to a murky gray. The fact is, clarity is only found through distinction.

Take some time to hear this teaching that’s so important to the spiritual contest of the Christ.

No Partiality

The early definition of the word “partiality” connotes something that is not whole or complete. The word later developed into an idea of one-sidedness, or, an unjust or unreasonable preference for a person or a group over against another, and this is its general meaning in scripture. In the Authorized Version, God testifies that He is not a “respecter of persons;” that His standards are applied the same to each who is judged. In addition, the bible admonishes us to keep ourselves free from partiality due to its distortive affects our perspective. In a world overwhelmed with contention and strife, the believer must keep free of partiality and, as John 7:24 says, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”