Monthly Archives: July 2014

Addicted To Righteousness

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ADDICTED TO RIGHTEOUSNESS! 

“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey – whether you are slaves to sin which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” Romans 6:15-18.

Another irrational argument! The first one – the more I sin, the more God’s grace is revealed! What a terrible misunderstanding! That one doesn’t hold water because I died with Christ when He died on the cross – symbolised by my baptism. Death set me free from sin to live a new life. It is up to me to live as though I were dead, and risen to a life without the ravages of sin.

The second one – shall I keep on sinning because I am no longer under the law? Since God’s grace has replaced the law, can I going on living any way I please because God’s grace has made provision for my sin and He will keep on forgiving me? Another terrible misunderstanding! To continue to live in sin isn’t just about doing what I like when I like; it’s about being the slave of the one I serve.

When I serve sin, I am enslaved by it; my old selfish nature dictates what I do and, unfortunately, the consequences are part of the deal. Death! Sin is like a habit-forming drug. The more I sin, the more I want to sin, and the less able I am to resist gratifying the demands of my sinful nature. The more I fulfil my own lusts, the less appetite I have to love and obey God. My appetite is formed by whatever I eat.

Have you ever seen a child who feeds on junk food have an appetite for vegetables! Of course not. His appetite is developed by what he eats. The same applies in the spiritual realm. If I continually feed my spirit on “junk food”, activities that gratify my selfish and fleshly appetites, I will lose my appetite for God.

God’s grace has freed me from slavery to sin. I am no longer under obligation to do what my old master demands because I have died to it and am alive to my new Master, Jesus Christ. He has provided forgiveness for living to please myself; He broke the power my old nature had over me and set me back on the path that leads to wholeness and eternal life.

“But,” you ask, “what’s all the fuss about sinning or not sinning anyway? Why can’t I keep living as I like because Jesus has provided forgiveness, and I will go to heaven when I die?” You don’t understand. God created man in His own image to resemble Him in His character and to be one with Him, in harmony with what He thinks and what He desires. It was in that state of perfection that man was fully human.

The moment the first pair broke their union with the Father through disobedience, they lost their connection with their source of life; they died spiritually, and began to die physically. What killed them? Sin. Sin dehumanised them. They were no longer fully human. We think that being human is being subject to weakness. “After all,” we argue, “I’m only human.” No, you are human only when you have been restored to fellowship with God and are being renewed in knowledge after the image of your Creator.

God cannot die because He cannot sin. The grave could not hold Jesus because He was God’s sinless lamb. God sacrificed His sinless Son not only to provide forgiveness but to restore our union with Him so that we can become fully human again. Why would we want to keep on sinning when sin will kill us all over again?

Instead of seeing God’s forgiveness as something that deprives us of the “pleasures” of sin, we need to view it as a lifeline that rescues us from the jaws of death and an open door to the true pleasures of living in His presence and being made fully human again. As we eat the bread of His Word instead of the junk food of sinful indulgence, our appetite for God and His ways will increase. Then, Paul says, we will be “slaves” to righteousness, addicted to doing what pleases our Father.

That’s an addiction I want to have. Don’t you?

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Dead Or Alive

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DEAD OR ALIVE?

“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” Romans 6:12-14.

“But,” you ask, “why am I not sinlessly perfect now if I died and rose again with Jesus? Why do I still struggle with the temptations of my old nature?”

Firstly, God would have to take you out of this present evil world in order to set you free from all the allurements to sin, and He will. Although He did not have a natural bent towards sin, Jesus Himself was not immune to temptation.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet He did not sin.” Hebrews 4:15.

Secondly, God has left us in the world, and He has not obliterated our old nature because He is training us to be His sons and daughters. Without the temptation to do wrong, we would not have opportunity to exercise our will and learn submission and obedience to Him in the environment of sin and disobedience. The very hardships we endure and the temptations that come with the tests, are God’s way of strengthening and purifying our faith in Him.

“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children…No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:7a; 11.

Thirdly, by learning to make the right choices in the face of temptation, we strengthen our love and loyalty to the One who saved us and called us into fellowship with Himself. We are witnesses to the enemies of God, both human and demonic, that God is worthy of our love and trust. He reveals through us who He really is.

People are suspicious of God because the devil has lied to them. They cannot abide Hid holiness and they think He is out to get them. They create their own gods to replace Him because their gods are manageable and more like themselves. They think they are not obligated to live up to His standards and to be accountable to Him if they have their own god. But in the end they will stand before Him to give an account of the way they lived.

How then, do we overcome the old nature that still rages within us? Paul said, “It’s dead. Now act as though it were dead.” In his book, My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers said that we must go to our own white funeral. In other words, we must see our old nature in a casket, being buried in the grave with Jesus. We must visualise ourselves rising with Him and leaving the old sinful nature behind in the tomb.

On the strength of that, we are to make our mortal bodies a present to God, using every part of it for His purposes, not our own. We are constantly being pulled in two directions, towards gratifying ourselves or pleasing God by meeting the needs of others. Paul said, “…Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.” Romans 12:1b. How do we do that?

Again Paul tells us: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” Romans 12:2a.

Change the way you think by thinking what God thinks. Just as sin begins in the mind, so obedience to God begins in the mind. Instead of dwelling on your own wants and wishes, fill your mind with what God says and desires and the slow transformation into the way Jesus thought and acted will begin to happen. That means taking time to read God’s word ad taking the trouble to find out what His thoughts are about you and how He wants you to live.

Yes, it does demand time and discipline, but the rewards are out of this world!

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

United With Him

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UNITED WITH HIM

“For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will certainly also be united with Him in a resurrection like His. 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 from sin.

“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. For we know that, since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life He lives, He lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:5-11.

That’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it!

As we were saying, Jesus’ death in our place has many more implications than the forgiveness of our sins. Our faith in Him produced a spiritual union that affects everything about our lives. When we were baptised in water, we witnessed in a physical act our identity with both His death and His resurrection. Jesus’ death and our acceptance of His death for us by faith cancelled our debt of sin and broke sin’s hold over us. The Holy Spirit raised our dead spirits to life, reconnecting us to God, to His life and to His power which enables us not to sin.

In our old state, before we believed in Jesus, we had no power not to sin because the pull of our old nature was towards disobedience. But now, in Christ, sin’s hold over us had been broken. God has restored His own nature in us and the Holy Spirit is united with our spirits so that we are able to respond to His prompting towards trust and obedience.

Paul put it this way: just as we died with Jesus symbolically in our baptism, so we also died in Him in reality when He died on the cross. In the same way, just as we rose symbolically from our watery grave, so we also rose from the dead in Him. His resurrection guarantees our life because He can never die again. Death is the cut-off point of this life. What happens afterwards depends on what happens here and now.

This has all happened in the unseen realm, legally if you like. We have been legally declared “Not guilty,” and our debt has been cancelled. God has removed all the barriers between us and Him. We have access to Him without sacrifices or priests, through Jesus our High Priest and Mediator. Our status has been changed from “sinner” to “son”. We are in Christ and since He is alive, we are alive in Him.

But where do we go from here? From God’s perspective everything has been done. It’s not about “what we will be” but “what we are”. We have not only been forgiven, rescued and set free; we have also been made perfect in Christ. Our entire past has ceased to exist. We are free from its debt and its guilt and shame, to pursue who we now are.

So Paul says, “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Since this is all a fait accompli, act on it because, and as if it is true. “But,” you say, “that’s all very well, but I still cannot do the right thing on my own.” But that’s the point. You have been set free to choose to obey God rather than the dictates of your old selfish and rebellious nature. Once you have made your choice to obey God because you value Jesus more than yourself, the Holy Spirit supplies the strength to do it.

That’s what Paul means by “count”; reckon, accept that it is so and make your choice accordingly. The Holy Spirit is in you to enable you to carry through on your decision. Every time you deliberately choose to obey God, it becomes easier to do it the next time. In this way you will be strengthening the divine nature in you and putting to death the old nature which is already potentially dead in Christ.

God has equipped us with two sources of power – the Holy Spirit and His Word. Look at this Scripture:

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that, through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort…” 2 Peter 1:3-5a.

It has happened! Now make it happen.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

A Line In The Sand

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A LINE IN THE SAND

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Romans 6:1-4.

Paul did not let the grass grow under his feet. As ridiculous as the counter-arguments may sound, he anticipated and responded to each one before they were even thought of.

 

If the sinfulness of man resulted in the revelation of God’s grace, and the greater the sin, the greater the grace, why not just go on sinning so that God’s grace may be even more evident? What a crazy argument! It’s like saying, “Let me live as recklessly as I can and do as much damage to myself as I can so that the skill of the doctor who attends to me can be made known!”

We would never reason like that when it comes to our own physical bodies and yet there are people who actually think that it’s okay to carry on sinning because God will forgive them. Like the Israelites of old, who happily disobeyed God’s commands because they offered sacrifices for their sin, there are people who think that God’s forgiveness is the reason for carrying on with their old sinful lifestyle.

 

This way of thinking completely misses the reason why the Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the world. His broken body and shed blood dealt with the guilt of our past, paying our debt and striking all our sins from the record. But there is much more to it than that. Sin is not only debited to our account, it also pollutes us, making us unclean, like the leper who was excluded from society because he was infectious and his putrefying sores made him look unsightly and smell offensive

We know that a decaying body produces a terrible stench. Can you imagine how bad a dead spirit must smell? And we were dead in our trespasses and sins before God, through the Holy Spirit raised us up in Christ, washed us clean through His blood and made us sweet-smelling and acceptable to the Father. Why would we even think of living in sin again and smelling like a pig sty all over again?

Imagine your little daughter playing in the mud just before she is due to attend a birthday party. You pick her up, put her in the bath and wash her from top to toe. Then you rub her dry, powder her and dress her in her party finery. Would she want to go back into the mud just so that she could be bathed again? Of course not!

But Jesus’ sacrifice not only remedied the past – it also transforms our present. When He died on the cross, since we are now “in Him”, we also died with Him. We made a public declaration of our identity with Him through our baptism, symbolised by our going down into a watery “grave” and rising with Him to a new life. There is nothing magical about baptism itself; the physical act of being dunked under the water does nothing, but it is a powerful witness and declaration of what has happened in the spirit.

Something happens in the spirit realm when we declare, through a public action that we have died with Christ and been raised to a new life. It is a kind of “cut-off” point between our past and present. It speaks to the people who witness it as well as to the unseen realm of angels, good and evil, that we have become new creatures in Christ. It is a declaration of war against those who hate God, both people and devils but, at the same time it brings all the power of heaven to our assistance.

We now have a new Master, a new identity and a new destiny, based on the gift of Jesus Christ’s righteousness which has been credited to us through God’s grace. Would we not then, in keeping with who we now are, embrace the grace of God to live up to our new identity? Our baptism, identifying us as children of God and followers of Jesus, is like drawing a line in the sand.

On which side of the line do you stand?

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Just As…So Also

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JUST AS…SO ALSO

“Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as, through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so also, through the obedience of the one man, the many will be made righteous. The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But, where sin increased, grace increased all the more so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 5:18-21.

Amazing, isn’t it, how precise God’s action was to undo at the cross what Adam did in the garden!

But, before anyone gets the idea from the above passage, that Paul was advocating universal salvation, that is that everyone is automatically saved because of the cross, we need to look carefully at what Paul said. Adam’s one act of disobedience brought sin and death on all people because Adam represented the human race. Every human being, past, present and future came from Adam. We are all “in Adam”. Therefore, we were all born with Adam’s nature, with a natural enmity towards God and a bent towards sin.

Jesus Christ died in the place of all human beings, past, present and future, to free us from the punishment for sin, but only those who are “in Christ” actually receive the gift of eternal life. Everyone has been forgiven but not everyone has received forgiveness.  Everyone has been invited to access God’s forgiveness and the gift of righteousness and eternal life, but only those who receive His gift by faith and participate in His life are actually “in Christ”.

Paul was both comparing and contrasting what Jesus did with what Adam did to reveal the extent of God’s mercy over His judgment. Adam disobeyed one instruction which was enough to separate him from God and bring death upon the whole human race. From that one act of disobedience flowed a stream of rebellion which turned the world into a jungle of sin and death.

After a lifetime of submission to the Father, Jesus’ life culminated in one act of obedience which brought mercy to all who believe in Him. He reconciled us to the Father and provided the potential for us to be restored to the His image.

God separated and called one nation, Israel, through Abraham, to be His own people and gave them His law to show them how to live so that the surrounding nations would have a glimpse of the one true God. The law was intended to teach them what sin was so that they, in their inability to keep the law, would experience God’s forgiveness through the blood of an animal sacrificed in their place.

The entire sacrificial system was to be a visual aid of what God had already done through His Son from before the foundation of the world. “So,” Paul said, “God gave the law to increase sin.” But why? Surely He wanted them to obey Him, not to sin? Yes, that was His intention, but the law could not produce obedience – it could only reveal the extent of their guilt. They had to realise how deep their sin was in order to understand and appreciate the greatness of God’s grace.

It is impossible, through any amount of effort, to produce perfect righteousness because everything we do is stained with sin. Even our best efforts have our filthy fingerprints all over them. So God did away with our trying as a basis of acceptance with Him. “That was useless,” He said. “I have a better way. My Son did a perfect job of living in obedience to me. All you need to do is accept the gift and put yourself under His authority and I will accept His obedience as though it were yours.”

But there is more. Just as we received Jesus’ righteousness as a gift to save us from God’s wrath, so we accept His righteousness in our everyday living. Many believers come unstuck here. Once we are “in Christ” we think that we have to maintain our acceptance with God through hard work. We keep trying to be good enough. God says, “Stop it!” We’re okay, just as we are. All He wants us to do is to keep trusting and following Jesus. He will recreate us into the image of His Son through the Holy Spirit in us.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.