Hi Mike,

The Law paper was a profound work which brought tears to my eyes at the end when you pointed out in this passage – “Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him through [ NOT FROM] death, and was heard in that he feared”. First time I truly understood why Christ had to be sacrificed. Before that I always wondered was there no other way? It seemed so brutal. But there was no other way for him nor for us as the necessity of us being dead in him.
Took my short walk this morning, 4 or 5 blocks total is pushing the envelope, and as I started walking I was thinking about the perfect law of love and a car came by with love written on it in white on the back window, most likely from a wedding over the weekend, but a witness to me that the path I am on is the right one. Again Mike thank you.
Are you familiar with woodworking? When you make a piece of furniture, especially a complex one, as you go along you dry fit the pieces together to make sure everything is square and in order. Just before you glue the piece together, you dry fit the whole piece together to make sure it fits. I have approached the Word of God like this, and your teachings give me more than a glimmer of hope that I am near the point where all the pieces fit together and the whole thing can be glued together for what you say is fitly framed together.

Eph 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
Eph 2:22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

I am somewhat compulsive when it comes to finishing a piece of furniture, and that same compulsiveness displays itself with the Word of the Lord. Of which I am sure you are a slave to also.
Thanks for your great effort in clarifying the word of the Lord. I am fighting much in my day- to- day life, and my mental capacities are not as strong as I would like, but I realized and have been realizing that through grace my weakness allows his strength and his Spirit to move through me for the praise of his glory.

Thanks Brother,
L____

Hi L____,
I am very pleased that you were edified by the paper on the law.
I am in the business of remodeling homes and repairing damage. I am by no stretch of the imagination a cabinet man, but the principles of cabinetry you discuss in this letter apply in every walk of life. Everything simply must be “fitly joined together” for our bodies to be a proper temple of God’s holy spirit. I do much framing in my line of work, so I certainly identify with this verse of scripture which you quoted:
Eph 2:20  And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner [ stone];
Eph 2:21  In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
Eph 2:22  In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
If we need to be “fitly framed together” in order to “grow unto an holy temple in the Lord” as a church, it follows that our doctrines and our understanding of those doctrines need the same cohesion in Christ.
Col 1:17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
Col 1:18  And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
So Christ really is sovereign and all of our trials are actually Him working His work in our lives bringing us to know the Truth, which truth He is.
Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I [ am] Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years [ hath] the famine [ been] in the land: and yet [ there are] five years, in the which [ there shall] neither [ be] earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.
Joh 8:32  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Never allow the Adversary to convince you that you cannot “know the Truth. An important part of that ‘Truth’ is that God in sovereign in “all things.”
Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Twice Joseph requires that his brothers give an account for their actions, saying, “You sold me into Egypt,” and yet he does not hold them responsible or accountable, saying, “It was not you, but God that sent me here.” God really is sovereign over every detail of life, and that explains why the word ‘responsibility” is nowhere to be found in scripture. There is a world of difference between giving an account and being accountable or responsible. Just like Joseph’s brothers, we will all “give an account” of what God has caused us to do, but we will never be given the credit of causing anything to happen. Knowing and accepting that truth is a load off of our shoulders.
Pro 20:24  Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?

Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
Rom 9:17  For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Rom 9:18  Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

I am so pleased that you are coming to see that it is our weakness that makes God’s strength so obvious. God’s grace works through both faith an gratitude. Both are nothing more or less than gifts from God:
Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [ it is] the gift of God:
2Co 4:15  For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.

God bless your predestined journey in His will and His work,

Your brother in Christ,
Mike