HOPE

 If we fight with no more than human hopes, what do we gain? If the dead are not raised, then continue to eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Do not be mislead, bad company corrupts good character. Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning. Shame reveals that you are ignorant of God. A moral is a lesson from information or an experience. It is a persons standard of behavior of what is and is not acceptable for them to do. Character is your nature or your substance. Trials produce perseverance; perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because Gods love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

We are baptized into the death of Jesus in order that we also be raised with him.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testimony of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Perseverance produces your character and character produces hope. This is not human hopes. If character is your substance and that substance produces hope then it becomes faith. Faith is the substance of hope. The hope you have is Christ in you. He is the first fruit, the firstborn from among the dead. That is if you believe he is the resurrection. 

Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good character. Bad, in the greek means worthless, depraved, injurious and destructive. Company in the Greek means intercourse, companionship, conversation or association. Remember that character is your nature. You were born into a fallen nature which is your soul. You were born a soul when you came from the natural man, Adam. The last Adam is a life giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural and after that the spiritual. You were born from Adam to be born into Christ. Adam is born of the dust and the second man is born of heaven. And just as we have born the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. Flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Our inheritance is not for what is perishable. It is not because of OUR death that we will inherit life. It is that we are perishable and when we put on the life of Christ who is imperishable then the saying that is written will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where o death is your victory? Where o death is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of death is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore brothers and sisters, stand firm, let nothing move you, always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor is not in vain. Vain means useless and worthless, which takes us back to the Greek meaning of the word "bad". Bad company corrupts good character. Corrupt is to cause to act dishonestly, to bribe, manipulate, adulterate or contaminate. Vain company causes good character to act dishonestly. Morals can't be your standard. If morals are your savior or idol then you are not giving yourself fully to the work of the Lord. And everything you do is then in vain and not for his great name. Vanity brings deception. If you are not born again, then you are still in your fallen state or fallen nature. But once you are baptized into the death of Christ Jesus, you are buried with him through that baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised form the death to the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. What is this new life? For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has been set free form sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead he can not die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died he died to sin, the life he lives he lives to God. In the same way count yourself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The death he died, he died to sin once for all. When he died to sin-we died to sin, once for all. That is why we can not die again. That is why the second death has nothing over us. Whoever has an ear let them hear what the Spirit says to the body. The one who is victorious will not be hurt at all by the second death. We know death has no victory because it has been swallowed up up life. And the life we now live we live unto God. Therefore morals didn't save us. Even character can't save us, because character with only human hope is worthless. 

Before you are baptized into Christ you are under a trial where death is you accuser. When you acknowledge you are guilty of sin then you become baptized into the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Your old nature of fallen man dies with Christ and then you are made alive in Christ to leave your life of sin and live a new life in your new nature. You leave your life of flesh whose master is death and you turn to your savior, Jesus Christ to receive life. This is repentance and this is salvation. This is the trial that produces perseverance which produces character which produces hope, which is the love of God being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. He is the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and gives life to our mortal body. This is resurrection life. This is the faith that brings us grace to live a new life in Christ. It is not from ourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works so that anyone can boast that it is them doing the work. We are created IN CHRIST JESUS to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. Once we tried to do good works apart from him, but now we are united with Christ Jesus through his blood. He destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace in ONE body to reconcile BOTH of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death our hostility. 

Read: Colossians 1:20-22, Romans 5:10, 1 Peter 2:9-10, Galatians 3:28, Hebrews 10:19-22, Romans 3:24-25, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, John 10:16, and Acts 2:39.

Therefore brothers and sisters, we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God (JESUS IS THE ONLY HIGH PRIEST) let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the faith we profess, for he who promised is faithful!