Keeping It Simple!!!

I can’t speak for anyone else except myself but for some reason in my early years, I thought reading the Bible was complicated.  When I followed some of the readings, I saw some complex issues that I wondered if I was able to do what The Word said.  How can I be born again?  Why should I turn my cheek is someone hits me?  How can I be slow to speak and quick to hear?  As I got older, I realized after asking the Holy Spirit to reveal the readings to me that, The Word is a lot simpler than I thought.  After talking to Rev. Ben Colley, who I credit a lot of enlightenment to, and many others, who follow The Word, that God wants to save all of us, even to the point of giving up His Son.  Jesus was willing to die for us by obeying His Father.  We forget that as a God, Jesus denied himself and took the mortal form.  But we can’t forget that He was born without sin and that He could only be conceived by a sinless woman.  But a sinless man defeated death.  Christ broke death’s hold on us!  Death held that fear over us since the Garden of Evil where God gave dominion over all that He created.  “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.  And the Lord God commanded man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17). “Thou shalt surely die.”  The introduction of man’s knowledge of death and we have been grieving since then.  We grieve for lost loves, family members, and anything else that we lost.  I know, I’ve been there.  On the cross, Christ said,”It is finished.” What was finished?  His mission? His death as a man?  Or overcoming death’s hold over man?  “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).  Christ had to go places where mortal men could not.  More importantly, He returned with victory!  What an amazing example of what happens when we obey God!  Can we ever comprehend the love and mercy of God the Father?  We must humbly bow down to a greater power with obedience, praise, and love.  We must strengthen ourselves with love and forgiveness towards each other adding patience, perseverance, and understanding.  It won’t be easy and it is never easy doing the right thing.  But if we try, who knows how much we can accomplish.  Let us continue to pray for each other.  Let’s keep it simple!