Good Morning, Meetpastordan Readers: The events that were celebrated this past weekend represent the very essence of Christianity; they changed the course of world and human history. On Friday, the Lamb of God was slain to pay the penalty for the sins of the world and to bring to an end the Old Covenant; on Saturday, Jesus descended into the bowels of the earth to gather together the Saints of the Old Testament (Matthew 27:52); and on Sunday, Easter Sunday, Jesus ushered in the New Covenant as He triumphed over death and was raised to eternal life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 1:4-5 describes God’s perfect plan: “Long ago, even before He created the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave Him great pleasure.
Nothing shows God’s unconditional, unending, unfailing love for us more than His plan for our Salvation. Mankind had from Creation to 2020 years ago to wrestle with the dilemma of SIN, and the end result continued to be a downward spiral into an abyss of darkness. Romans 5:6 eloquently depicts our pathetic state: “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.” It is my opinion that utterly helpless defines just the right time. I believe our loving God concluded, “they are absolutely incapable of becoming holy (Ref. Ephesians 1:4 above: set aside for sacred use; sin-free) through their own effort. Therefore, I will do for them what they have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt they are incapable of doing for themselves.” This decision is known as God’s Gift of Grace.
Let’s begin by defining “Grace”. Grace is unmerited favor. That means we did nothing to earn Grace, and truth be told, we certainly did not deserve it. Notice Romans 5:6 tells us that God gave us this gift while we were still sinners. That’s important because He didn’t wait for us to clean up our act so we would be worthy in His eyes! No! The fact that we were utterly helpless moved Him to act on our behalf. This is unconditional, unfailing love. His plan was always to provide a sacrificial lamb to do for us what He knew we could not do for ourselves. To begin reaping the rewards of this Gift requires only that we accept the truth that Jesus is the Son of God and He came in human form to pay the penalty for our sins on the cross. Once we make that decision, we are in Christ and heir to all the promises in the Bible and heir to all the “spiritual blessings in the heavenly realm”. (Ephesians 1:3)
God’s salvation plan can be explained as having three parts. The first part deals with forgiveness of sin. (This had to be first because it is a prerequisite for eternal life.) 1Peter 1:16 tells us, “we have to be Holy because God is Holy.” In other words, we cannot come into His presence if we are stained with SIN. Why? Because SIN spreads, contaminates, kills and destroys. If you doubt that, look at the world today. Remember, this world was originally perfect. It was Paradise. But with the fall of man, sin entered the world and manifested itself as fear, greed, hatred, anger, jealousy, lying, envy, pride, sickness, pain, suffering, and death. These qualities, which are the by-products of our sin nature, took the world from “paradise status” to “cesspool status”, and truth be told, these same qualities still define today’s culture as we sink deeper and deeper into spiritual and moral decay.
The reward for being a follower of Jesus Christ is that we will spend eternity with Him in Paradise. But as we can see from the paragraph above, for Paradise to be “Paradise”, it has to be sin-free! Therefore, only those who are in Christ – those who have been washed white as snow by the blood of Jesus – can come into His presence. But again, God continues to show His love, mercy and patience with us because Jesus will not return until every person has heard the Good News and has had the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. God doesn’t want to lose even one soul.
The second part of His salvation plan has to do with our eternal destiny. Jesus defeated Satan when He defeated death and rose to eternal life. Therefore, because we are in Christ, we too inherit eternal life. You see, God wanted our relationship with Him to be an eternal relationship, and again, the blood of Jesus makes that possible. Romans 5:9-10 explains it this way: “And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from God’s judgement. For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of His Son, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by His life.” Our eternal destiny is no longer a question. It is a promise!
But God’s perfect plan for us did not stop at this point. What about those of us who will continue to live in this fallen world for another 30, 40, 50 years after we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior? Can we endure? Can we make it to the end? Well, if it were up to our effort, definitely not! But again, we serve a loving God who knows we’re only dust. He is keenly aware of our “utterly helpless” state of being. Therefore, His plan was always to do for us what He knew we were incapable of doing for ourselves.
On the night of Jesus’ betrayal, He had a conversation with His disciples and revealed God’s plan for their victory (and our victory) over the world. This conversation can be found in John 14:16-18. “And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive Him, because it isn’t looking for Him and doesn’t recognize Him. But you do, because He lives with you now (it’s ME) and later will be in you. No, I will not abandon you as orphans – I will come to you”, in the form of the Holy Spirit.
This was God’s plan for assuring Christ-followers victory over the world, right here, right now! (This is the third part of His salvation plan.) The Holy Spirit empowers us to become the masterpiece referenced in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can NOW do the good things He planned for us long ago.” With the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we are now capable of becoming the person God created us to be through the decisions we make.
This is the secret weapon of every Christ-follower. The Holy Spirit is our source of power. Regardless of the issues we may face, be it addictions, relationship issues, anger issues, integrity issues, lack of wisdom, courage, patience, etc., we can call on the Holy Spirit to empower us by giving us His wisdom, insight, courage, perspective, whatever it is we need to make decisions that bring honor and glory to God. When that is our motivation, His promise to us is victory over the darkness. 1John 4:4 tells us, “The Spirit that is in me (the Holy Spirit) is greater than the spirit in this world.”(satan) Luke 10:19 references Jesus telling His Disciples, “I have given you authority over all the evil schemes of the devil…No harm will come to you! The victory is ours! We just have to know that to be the truth, then tap into our source of power, courage and strength.
Happy Easter to everyone! During this time of celebration, take time to thank God for His incredible plan for your life, both in this world, and in the world to come.
Please feel free to respond to this message, and please “like” it and share it with other social media friends.
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
Leave a Comment