As we travel through enemy territory here in the valley of the shadow of death, we can remember that the Lord Jesus has subdued our enemy so that we can drive him out quickly.

Perhaps this is what James had in mind in James 4:7 when he wrote, “resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (NASB 2020)

Way back in the olden days, God told the Hebrew nation, “you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His personal possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

The Greek word translated “hidden” is krypto. You might recognize the sound of that. We have crypto-currency, cryptography, encryption, etc.

It was the Law of God. But its purpose was not to produce righteous people. It was to make it clear that no amount of effort could possibly make them righteous and acceptable to God.

To them it appeared they were simply living life and doing what they wanted to do. They didn’t think of their conduct as something meriting favor from God.

Jesus is awesome, and that is the biggest understatement in the history of the world.

Life can be bios, our physical temporal mortal life, or zoe', immortal, eternal, spiritual Life, God's Life in us.

2 Peter 3:18 (NASB 2020) urges us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” This “knowledge of our Lord” is another pertinent use of close.

I think all fleshliness grieves and quenches Holy spirit.

To speak of grieving Him is to speak of the effect fleshliness has on the Spirit of God in us. He wants better for us, and it breaks His heart, so to speak, when we live as though we were still in the flesh.

None of us enjoy the trials and tribulations we face here in the valley of the shadow of death. Even though we are the children of God and the ambassadors of Christ here in the domain of darkness, we are not exempt from the effects of its fallen state. We all suffer hardship.

What this passage is telling us is that adversity makes us stronger. As we persevere through hard times, we learn the value of staying the course. We come to see that hard times don't last forever, that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

When we believe in Jesus, we are not just declared righteous in a legal sense, but we are also made new at the core of our being. We are given a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:26-27), and we become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). This transformation means that we are truly righteous, not just in theory but in reality. We are no longer slaves to sin but have become slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:18).

That unsettled feeling is definitely Holy Spirit. I bet you’ve noticed Him speaking to you in a way not unlike intuition. That strangely unsettled feeling over a poor choice, or joyful peace over a good one. I sure have.

God is Love and His voice always sounds like Him.

The doctrine of the Trinity is the best way we have found to represent this three-yet-one, one-yet-three God, but like all such doctrine it is imperfect due to our limitations.

A recent questioner asked, “Can our words and deeds make God not loving to us? Can our words make God’s blessings not for us? What does the Lord speak unto the saints who have become defiled?”

We know the difference by testing things against Father’s character. We are helped by the descriptions of His character we find in the Scriptures.

Jesus claimed to do nothing but what the Father told Him, and this passage tells us there is something He did not know. How is it then that we can say that the three Persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are co-equal

Don’t let the enemy get away with selling you the big lie. When thoughts inconsistent with what you know to be the truth come, be ready to knock them down with truth. The enemy need not shake us, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.

Peter keeps it simple, let’s make it our aim to do the same. We should remain alert to the fact that the enemy wants to inject lies into our thinking.