I have a friend who says, “Pennies are like people. They're not worth much until you pick them up.” Jesus made a habit of picking up castaway pennies, and one of them was a woman at the well.

In John 4:10, Jesus said to the woman at the well, “If you knew the gift of God and Who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” The real issue is physical water versus spiritual water. In verse 13 it says, “Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks the water that I shall give him will never thirst. The water that I gave him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to everlasting life.’”

When Jesus says, “will never thirst,” He uses the strongest possible negative in the Greek language. The only way we can carry it across into English is “absolutely never, ever.” Jesus is saying, “Whoever drinks the water that I give will absolutely never, ever thirst again.” It doesn't mean that we're not going to recognize needs, but what it means is this once you are born into the family of God, there is nothing that can take you out of it.

So important is this that you will find the seven “NEVERs” of the Gospel of John. John records the seven statements that say that once you have trusted in Christ, at that moment of time, in simple childlike faith, you receive the Gift that He alone can give. With the gift you get Him (which is the real gift,) and nothing is ever going to separate you from it. You have eternal life! And when you have eternal life, you not only have it as a present possession, you have it as a permanent possession.

The woman says in verse 25, “I know that the Messiah is coming who is called Christ. When He comes, He will tell us all things. And Jesus said to her, ...” — now watch your English translation, because it doesn't tell it as it is — “Jesus said to her, the One speaking I AM.” That's very important because if you know anything about the I AM, you go back to Exodus 3:14, and the answer from the burning bush was “You tell them that I AM that I AM.” Jesus and I AM are one and the same. He is proclaiming 1) His deity, that he is God in the flesh and 2) He's proclaiming what He can do.

Later, of course, to the knowledge that He knows all about her. You've had five husbands in the one you have now is not your husband. And again, He did not do that to shame. He did it to say, “I know you. I know all about you. I know every broken heart that you've ever had. I know every tear that you ever cried. And I know the reason that things have happened to you. The way they've happened. And I don't hold you accountable. I simply want you to come to the point where you recognize that you have a choice to make.”

Learn about "The Simplicity of Salvation" here:
https://basictraining.org/simplicity-of-salvation/

Download or order the free booklet “The Gift” here: https://basictraining.org/the-gift/

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Nicodemus, we're told, is “a ruler of the Jews,” which tells us he was one of 70 rulers of the Jews called the Sanhedrin. So a very prominent guy here coming to the Lord Jesus. And it says, “This man came to Jesus by night.” And so he comes to Him and he says, “Rabbi,” the term of high respect. And so he gives Jesus quite a distinction, saying, “’we know that you're a teacher, come from God. For no one could do these signs that you do unless God is with him.’ And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” He went straight to the issue. He's about to call him the teacher of Israel. And Jesus said, you're not even born again.

“Nicodemus said to Him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb?’ And Jesus said, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’” Jesus is trying to get him into spiritual terms, and the water is referring to physical birth. “Spirit,” of course, is referring to regeneration or what we call being “born again.” “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” And he said, “Do not marvel that I said, ‘You must be born again.’”

Now he uses another physical illustration with a spiritual meaning: “The wind blows where it wishes. You hear the sound, but you can't tell where it comes from or where it's going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” And Nicodemus, again confused, says, “How can these things be?” Verse ten, then Jesus says, “Are you the teacher of Israel? You don't know these things? If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven.” — talking about the omnipresence of God.

And then Jesus uses an illustration that Nicodemus should have been very familiar with. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” The story here in verses 14 and 15 comes from numbers 21 for the children of Israel did what the children of Israel always did complain, mulled wine. And so God sent fiery serpents among them. And they were getting bitten and dying. And they came to Moses and confessed their sin. And they said, Pray to God that He will deliver us.

And Moses said, make a bronze serpent. Put it on a pole. Anyone looks at it live. If they don't want to look at it, they're going to die. Right? 1500 years before Christ, it was a picture of His crucifixion. Those serpents that were killing them were symbolized by the serpent on the pole. Your sins and my sins that have been killing us were symbolized when Jesus Christ became sin for us. The Scripture says, God made Him become sin for us, though He knew no sin, “that we might become the righteousness of God.” How? By faith in Him. And it's in that context that Jesus now says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Learn about "The Simplicity of Salvation" here:
https://basictraining.org/simplicity-of-salvation/

#shorts #BibleStudy #bibleverse
#jesuslovesyou
#jesuschrist
#god
#devotional #bible #christianity #gospel #love #holyspirit #christian

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I don't know how anyone can make any sense out of the Bible if they don't believe in a dispensational approach. The dispensational approach to Scripture is under heavy fire. Now, there are people that say that we can't tell where we are; we don't know where we are. We're just somewhere along this moving line of history, which to me seems ridiculous.

First, eternity past and future is all the same to God and He can be anywhere in history at the same time. Try to figure that out. I can't. The minute you put the cross in the middle of human history, however, you have just acknowledged dispensational truth. That's why we call everything recorded before the cross “Old Testament” and everything after “New Testament.” Really, what we're talking about is “Old Covenant” -- the Mosaic Covenant, and the “New Covenant” that Jesus inaugurated with His disciples in the upper room after His resurrection. To start the Church Age, we have the descent of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 3:1-9, calls it the “mystery” dispensation. The word dispensation from the Greek means “the rule or management of the household.” So, there's a different rule for the Mosaic household than there is for the new household. Hebrews 3:1-6 talks about two different households. Moses was a servant in his household. Jesus is the Lord over his household. Therefore, He is much greater than Moses. These are two different households. The reason that the church is called a “mystery” is because it was never revealed in the Old Testament. The very first mention of the church was when Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ, Son of the living God.” And Jesus said, “On this rock, I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

The church age has a lot of unique things that never happened before. For a short list of five unique church-age-only provisions for believers in Jesus Christ see https://basictraining.org/five-works-of-the-holy-spirit/. 1) We have the baptism of the Holy Spirit by which we are placed into eternal union with Jesus Christ. 2) We have the work of regeneration, which gives us the life of Christ. When we talk about eternal life. We're talking about the life of Jesus Christ. 3) We have the permanent indwelling of every believer. That never happened in the Old Testament. Every believer in Jesus Christ is permanently in dwelt by the Holy Spirit. 4) We have the gifting of every believer, which is the divine enablement for each of us to accomplish whatever plan God has for our life. 5) And then we have the work of the sealing of the Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our eternal security. Those are only five of the at least 40 things mentioned in the first three chapters of the Book of Ephesians. Remember how Paul begins the Ephesians by saying, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ.” Well, he goes through the first three chapters and just keeps adding new things, new things, new things, new things -- all those riches that we have.
The church age is going to end with the Rapture of the church. We've studied that several times (See playlist "Proof of the Pre-Trib Rapture" on this channel.) Christ ascends from heaven. The church ascends to meet Him, after which is a terrible time of tribulation. This is Revelation chapters six through 19. The Church is mentioned 19 times in the first three chapters of Revelation. It's never mentioned in the section dealing with the tribulation. Those who tell you that we need to prepare to go through the tribulation or those who tell you that we're already in the tribulation simply are incapable of seeing the obvious. In the Book of Revelation, we are nowhere to be found in the tribulation period. His doesn't mean it can't get bad in our time. I often refer to what I call the pre-tribulation Tribulation, and I think we're in that right now. After the tribulation, Jesus Christ comes back to this earth, establishes His kingdom that He promised to Israel. It lasts (we're told three times in Revelation 20) a thousand years. At the end of it, we have the great White Throne Judgment, which is the judgment of all unbelievers. Unbelievers are cast into the lake of fire at the end of Revelation chapter 20, and then we enter into Eternity Future in Revelation 21-22.

Basic Training Bible Ministries offers the free Basics Book which has been translated into several languages. It include many of the details presented in this video and is available for download or order and free shipping here:
https://basictraining.org/basics-books-translations/

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