Good Morning, Meetpastordan Readers… As I stated at the end of last week’s posting, this week I will write about what it means to be in Christ, and what it means to live “in the Spirit”. God’s plan for our salvation is absolutely perfect. Not only did He provide for, and seal, our eternal destiny, He also made it possible for us to become the person He created us to be…right here, right now. This gift-package is from a loving, compassionate, and merciful God, because He didn’t/doesn’t want to lose even one of His proudest creation to eternal damnation.
He created us not only for a here-and-now relationship, but for an eternal relationship. Unfortunately, we proved ourselves to be “utterly helpless” (Ref. Romans 5:6) to overcome the issue of Sin! Left to our own best effort, none of us could qualify to enter His kingdom because His standard revealed that “we must be holy (sin-free; set aside for a sacred purpose) because He is holy.” (1 Peter 1:16) In other words, if we’re stained with Sin, we won’t get in! And just in case you’re wondering, “Why?”, the answer would be, “because Sin contaminates, spreads, kills and destroys.” (Ref. 1 Corinthians 5:1-13)
Because God is God, one of His majestic qualities is omniscience, which means He has the ability to look into the future to see what will happen. So when His proudest creation made the choice to become disobedient, God was not taken by surprise. He knew, even before He created us, that we were going to take the focus off of Him and put it on “self”. (In fact, that is the very definition of Sin: Taking the focus off of God and living for “self”.) But truth be told, Ephesians 1:4 tells us that “long ago, even before He created the world (and Man), He had a plan to find us holy and without fault in His eyes because we were in Christ. His plan was always to adopt us into His family through Jesus Christ, and this gave Him great pleasure.”
Because God knew we could never overcome the dilemma of Sin through our own effort, His plan was always to provide a Redeemer to save us from ourselves. By providing Jesus Christ as our sacrificial lamb, His shed blood paid the penalty for the sins of all Mankind. (Remember, under the Old Covenant sin could only be covered if blood were shed, thus confirming a sacrifice.) If we believe that Jesus was the Son of God, and that His purpose in coming was to pay the ransom for our Sin, we will be saved. John 3:16 states this very clearly and succinctly: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life.” Notice that the only requirement for receiving this Gift of Grace is believing (faith), but the content of God’s Gift continues to be transformational, as you will see.
When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are immediately “justified” with God. This means that we are reconciled, or made “right” in His eyes. 2 Corinthians 5:17 explains what happens: “We are (immediately) a new creation in Christ. The old life is gone; a new life has begun.” Prior to being in Christ, we were slaves to our “sin nature.” We didn’t realize that was our condition; we just did what came naturally. After all, everyone else was doing it so it must be all right! Right? The answer would be a resounding NO!
When we’re yielding to our sin-nature, we are living to exalt or pleasure “self”. Galatians 5:19-21 explains why this is problematic. “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, out-bursts of anger, selfish ambition, feeling that you’re right and everyone else is wrong, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God!”
I mentioned in the first paragraph that God’s plan for our salvation is perfect. This is why I stated that so emphatically. When we accept His Gift of Grace, we immediately inherit a treasure trove of gifts. First and foremost, our sins are forgiven because we are covered with the blood of Jesus. Now we qualify to inherit eternal life because we are sin-free. These two gifts secure out eternal destiny. Now we can look forward to spending eternity in Paradise with God, Jesus and all other Christians.
But what about those of us who are still living in this fallen world, in these fleshly bodies, who have to deal with a formidable Enemy that is a master liar, deceiver, accuser, and schemer? Didn’t Man prove himself to be incapable of overcoming satan’s wiles through his own effort? While it’s good that our eternal destiny is solidified, what about those of us who are still on the front lines in the midst of an ongoing battle against the Domain of Darkness?
Well, here’s more Good News! God has already planned for our success because part of His Gift of Grace is the indwelling Holy Spirit. Jesus explained this in John 14:16-18: “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 and later will be in you. No, I will not abandon you as orphans – I will come to you.” This is a gift from God so we can become the people He created us to be. Ephesians 1:14 tells us: “The Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee that He will give us everything He promised and that He has purchased us to be His own people. This is just one more reason for us to praise our glorious God.” And 2 Peter 1:3 reaffirms that statement: “The more we grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ, His divine nature gives us everything we need for living a Godly life.” And what is that “everything” we need for living a Godly life? Our secret weapon, the indwelling Holy Spirit. As 1 John 4:4 tells us, “He that is in me (Holy Spirit) is greater than he that is in this world.” (satan)
Let me be very clear about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not change our lives in any way unless we call Him into action. We have to say, “Holy Spirit, give me your wisdom, courage, strength, understanding, patience, perseverance, eyes to see, ears to hear”, whatever it is we need to empower us in our time of battle. If our motivation for doing this is to become the person He created us to be, or to bring honor and glory to Him through our choices, His promise to us is…I will fight your battle through you! This is what it means to live in the Spirit. It’s about us getting “self” out of the way so the Holy Spirit can live through us.
Since this is part 2 of a message about the Good News being the best news ever, I would like to close with Apostle Paul’s statement to the people in Colosse. “This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is changing lives everywhere, just as it changed yours that very first day you heard and understood the truth about God’s great kindness to sinners.” (Colossians 1:6) Now it’s 2000 years later and that same Good News is still transforming lives around the world. In Africa, China and in the Middle East, this same message of love, forgiveness and hope is drawing millions of new Believers to the Christian faith every week. No other message satisfies the human need like the Good News! My prayer now is that our own country will respond as the early colonies did when they experienced their Great Awakening. Rest assured…our Great Awakening is coming soon! Amen.
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May God Bless Ya…
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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