(Because of the targeting nature of the next few blogs, the first two paragraphs will be a copy of those in Pt. 1. The new material will begin in the third paragraph for the next few weeks.)
Good Morning, Unbelievers (and faithful Readers): Welcome! Let me introduce myself: My name is Dan. You might not know me, but I know you. “How do you know me”, you might be wondering? Because I was an unbeliever myself for most of my life. I was a very proud Atheist; I was an intellectual. In fact, I even had the title, Professor, to prove it. Therefore, I could not possibly accept that trivial drivel the church is selling. I mean, “Come on…smart people like me and you can’t fall for gibberish that makes no rational sense.” That was my excuse. What is your excuse? You don’t believe in God, or you believe in god, but not Jesus. You don’t believe in organized religion, or you’ve been scared by organized religion. You don’t believe there is only one way to an after-life; you don’t believe in heaven or hell; you don’t believe the Bible can be true; you’ve seen church leaders that you once followed fall from their pedestals; you know hypocrites who claim to be Christians, but who continue to live as heathens; you see no way you could have fun if you’re expected to follow all of those confining “dos” and “don’ts”, or… you believe you are a “good person”, in fact, better than most, and you know that God, because He is a good God, will welcome you into heaven. Those are many of the classic reasons for remaining an unbeliever. I get that! The truth is, all of those thoughts were stumbling blocks for me as I continued to live in bondage to my arrogance.
So, you may be asking yourself, “What is Dan’s deal? Why does he care about what I believe, or what happens to me? My honest answer to that question is this: There was certainly a time when I could not have cared less about you, your belief or your destiny. But during that period of my life, I was totally consumed with “me”, my agenda and my career. As smart as I thought I was, in reality…I was totally ignorant of The Truth. I had a lot of knowledge and common sense, but I was ignorant of what I now know to be THE TRUTH. (I want to be perfectly clear here; I am not referring to worldly truth, worldly philosophy, or situational truth. I am referring to God’s Word (or God’s Truth, which is collected and codified in the Holy Bible). Today, it breaks my heart to know that people will perish just because they do not know THE TRUTH. I want to do everything possible to give unbelievers the same opportunity I had for redemption. I hope you will take five minutes to read each of these blogs. If you have questions, or criticisms, please respond to me at drpresgr@gmail.com, or you can call me at 314-799-7075. What have you got to lose?
(The new material for this lesson begins here). Last week we learned that being in Christ secures our eternal destiny. Our sins are forgiven, therefore we qualify for eternal life. That statement is substantiated by this Scripture found in Revelation 21:27: “Nothing evil will be allowed to enter (the New Jerusalem – our eternal paradise), only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” This refers to all of us who are washed clean by the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ. (That is another way of saying, “for those of us who are in Christ.”) No doubt that is Great News, but you may be asking yourself, what about those of us who are still living in this fallen and perverse world? How are we supposed to make it? Does God have a plan for us? Well, here is some more Great News!
Because God IS LOVE, He doesn’t want to lose even one of His proudest creation to eternal damnation. Remember, He gave us His Gift of Grace, when we (Mankind) proved ourselves “utterly helpless” to rise above the dilemma of Sin through our own best effort. By giving us His Gift of Grace, He was willing to pay our sin-debt with the blood of His Son. (To put this in human terms, “can you imagine being convicted of a crime, but when you went to pay your fine, you were told that the judge paid the fine for you?) That is exactly what John 3:16 tells us: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Whoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life.” And what is required of YOU in order to inherit this gift? Only that YOU believe that He IS who God said He is (His only begotten Son, meaning of the same substance), and that He died on the cross to pay the blood penalty for YOUR sins!.
Another part of our inheritance from being in Christ is the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. This is our power source for rising above our own limitations to bring honor and glory to God, even though we have to contend with this fallen world, our flesh, and our formidable enemy, satan! Don’t forget, God knows what we have to deal with as long as we are living in this world; He saw what the world did to His Son! He also knows that we are NO match for the sinful temptations that will continue to come our way. Therefore, He has given us everything we need for being victorious in the upcoming battles.
Who is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the essence of Jesus Christ living in us. Jesus defined this when He shared this information with His disciples. “If YOU love Me, obey My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give YOU another Advocate who will never leave YOU. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive Him, because it isn’t looking for Him, and doesn’t recognize Him. But YOU know Him, because He lives with YOU now (meaning, it’s ME!), and later will be IN YOU! (John 15:17) This is substantiated by Ephesians 1:14: “The Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee that He will give us the inheritance He promised, and that He has purchased us to be His own people.”
Apostle Paul explains in Galatians 5:16-21 why “living in the Spirit” is so vitally important to maturing in our relationship with God. “Now that you have the Holy Spirit in you, let the Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are no longer slaves to your sinful nature.” (YOU HAVE THE FREEDOM NOW TO MAKE CHOICES BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL.) But, when you do give into the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissention, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before: anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
Now contrast that with the fruit of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to His cross, and crucified them there! AMEN!
If this sounds like a fairy tale, or smoke and mirrors to you, you could not be more wrong. Remember, God revealed Himself to us by speaking to us through prophets. He chose this method because He wanted us to come to know Him, to know His loving nature, and His character. Numbers 23:19 tells us: “It is impossible for God to lie” Why? Because it is absolutely contrary to His nature. He IS TRUTH. As we saw earlier, He has made, and challenged us, with many hundreds of promises in the Bible. (Remember, two paragraphs above in Ephesians 1:14, it stated that, “The Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee that He will give us the inheritance He promised…” If He were ever found to be untrustworthy, there would be no hope for our future, no truth in this world, and no possible way we could expect eternal life. Death would be the victor. But again, the Good News IS…satan, the power of darkness, was defeated 2021 years ago at the cross. The Truth is, we are already victorious because we are in Christ. We just have to know that truth, then we have to choose to live in the power of our victory! Thank You, God!
In an earlier blog in this series, I used the term: “We are in Christ, and Christ is in us.” I said I would come back to that. Being in Christ is our identity: our hope, our confident assurance, our patience, our peace and serenity. Christ in us is our power and our strength. Colossians 1:27 tells us: “Christ in us, our hope of glory.” Christ in us (The Holy Spirit with his power and strength) is our ONLY hope of glory.
Next week we will discuss how to use the Holy Spirit, and how we can expect to achieve the abundant life Jesus promised us. I’ll look forward to meeting with you then. Believers, please share part 4 with unbelievers that you know. If we continue to partner in this endeavor, we can save lost souls together.
May God Bless You,
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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