The Deal

   Here's the deal. This is so good, so rich, so excellent. It's the deal—not to be confused with THE DEAL which is Jesus Christ, AKA Yeshua Messiah (his actual Hebrew name). Jesus the man was a practicing Jew which for me makes him seem all the more historically real: Jesus the man. THE DEAL is that Jesus the man was at the same time the Son of God. He was Emmanuel (God with us), or as John the disciple wrote, "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). John knows what he's talking about. He was an eyewitness to "that which was from the beginning [God], which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched [Jesus the man]" (1 John 1:1). THE DEAL is that Jesus Christ actually lived, and actually was the Son of God and the whole story is true—the Truth we need to know. The Truth is that Jesus was the righteous Son of God and that as a man he died for us, you know the story, he was crucified and died so that those who accept by faith who he is and what he did as a man can become righteous and die with him (by faith) and become resurrected and live forever with him. What a blast! A lot more could be said about this (if you follow this blog more will be said in time) but for now I want to talk about the afore mentioned lower case deal (which nonetheless is good, rich, excellent and much more).

   So here's the deal. Jesus said, "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you" (John 15:7). Jesus said that, so we know it's the Truth—I'm going to be writing about (spiritual) Truth further in the near future—spiritual truth is more real than what you can hear, see or touch with your senses, but you can only access it by faith. Believe it's true, true, true. Access it now. 

   Anyway, Jesus' statement above is a logic statement. It says if A (you remain in me) + B (my words remain in you) then C (ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you). Jesus has more to say about asking and receiving but it boils down to essentially three things. If you hope to receive anything from God you must: 1) be in right standing with God, 2) be in right standing with your fellow man (these first two points are irreseparable  (I just made that word up so you won't find it in the dictionary, yet—it means they can't be separated) and 3) have faith (believe it's true). This essentially means that if a promise is in the Bible (God's Word)  then you can ask God for whatever is promised, and he will do it. 

   A good example would be asking for healing. God's Word promises over and over again that God will heal you if you are sick. And he will. Just follow the three above points and it's a done deal. Which is basically what it is, a deal. If you keep your end of the bargain, God will keep his. 

   So I asked God to make me a professional artist. I have virtually hundreds of scriptures to support my case. Scriptures from Exodus 35 where it states that it is God who fills the artist with His Spirit, "with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts," or this scripture from Psalm 90 where the psalmist states, "May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands." Believing is the hardest part because this promise sounds so impossible. 

   What I am proposing to do with this blog is to document my progress as I move on with God and prove the truthfulness of His Word.