Tag Archives: life

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.

 

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.

 

Faithful And Fair

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FAITHFUL AND FAIR

“God “will repay each person according to what he has done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, He will give eternal life. But for those who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honour and peace for everyone who does good; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favouritism.” Romans 2:6-11.

Isn’t it amazing? God is so fair that He allows us to choose the outcome of our lives! But, unlike the devil, He tells us all the options and doesn’t hide the small print. He lays it all out for us and then allows us to make an informed choice.

So why do so many people ignore His warnings, reject His offer of a new start on the right way, and end up where they didn’t want to go? There are some very powerful forces at work to keep us from believing God and being the beneficiaries of His mercy and grace.

The first is the same deception that led the first pair to defy God. Satan suggested that God is unreliable and unfair. He sowed doubt into their minds about His integrity. According to the devil, God either did not say what He meant or He did not mean what He said. In spite of all the warnings in Scripture, many people still refuse to believe that God means what He says. In their foolishness they brush Him aside with the age-old argument, “It won’t happen to me.”

Long ago God said through Asaph, the psalmist, “You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you…When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you.” Psalm 50:17; 21. People are still like that today. They think that, because nothing bad has happened to them, God either does not see or does not care about what they are doing. But they have forgotten that there is a day of reckoning coming.

The second force at work to keep us from God’s grace is the evil nature within us. Not only do we not believe Him; we don’t want to believe Him because we enjoy our sin too much. Satan does not have to do much deceiving and much persuading because we are willing allies to his deception. It suits us to believe him because we have no inclination towards God and His ways.

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear their deeds will be exposed.” John 3:19, 20.

But, in contrast to the dark side, there is a bright side. Paul said that there is a reward coming for those who persevere in doing good. Perseverance is the key. In the same way as punishment doesn’t come immediately, so rewards are being kept for the day when Jesus returns. It would be easy to lose heart and give up if we were not convinced that God is faithful and fair. We can count on the fact that He means exactly what He says.

“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.” 1 Corinthians 15:58.

This is what the Bible calls “the fear of the Lord”. To fear God is to revere and honour Him, and to act on what He has said because He is utterly faithful; firm and immovable on what He has spoken. We can depend on His reliability because He can never contradict Himself.

It costs discipline and stickablilty to keep on doing the right thing, like the salmon swimming against the current to get to their spawning ground. Like them, we have a reward coming at the end of the journey and it is worth the trouble to keep the end in view. Those who live for the moment have their reward – the momentary “pleasure” which will turn around and bite them in the end. Those who live for the end result, glory, honour and peace, will have to wait for it, but the outcome will be forever.

Acknowledgement

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

 

 

 

 

Truth Is Intolerant

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TRUTH IS INTOLERANT

“Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.'” John 14:5-7 NIV.

Sensible question, Thomas!

Jesus had been talking about going away, and yet He had not clearly stated where He was going. Did He assume that they would know what He was talking about? His thoughts and words were on a different level from theirs. Unless He told them, they would surely get it wrong again.

By the way, one thing about Thomas, although for some erroneous reason he got the name “Doubting Thomas”, was that he was honest. This time it wasn’t Peter blurting out his thoughts, but Thomas asking an honest question. If Jesus did not tell them, how were they supposed to know where He was going and why they could not go with Him?

Although He seemed to be speaking in riddles, if they had taken in what He kept telling them, they would have realized that He was once again referring to His death. It took Thomas’ question for Jesus to make the statement that gives all believers the security of knowing that their faith in Jesus alone ensures that they will get to the Father.

It also earns for Christianity the adjective ‘intolerant’ from all the other religions that claim that all roads lead to God. ‘It’s just a different name for God and a different way of looking at things.’ Of course the devil would have people believe that their man-made way is okay because he is behind the false religions and heresies that deny that Jesus is the only way. He will do whatever it takes to deceive people into thinking they are worshipping the true God.

Why is Jesus the only way to the Father?

Sin broke the oneness between God and His human family and barred the way to Him from the first moment when Adam and Eve chose to believe that it was okay to do things their way. God taught His people through the sacrificial system that sin demanded the shedding of blood to pay the debt we owe Him. Animal blood was shed as a picture of the death of God’s pure and sinless lamb, His own beloved Son, whom He would send to live a perfect human life and then be sacrificed as the atonement for the sin of the world.

How can there be any other way to remove the barrier between man and God? The debt of sin is unpayable. Even if we were to obey God perfectly from now on, which is impossible, what of the debt of our past? Because He had no sin of His own, Jesus took the debt of all people for all time on Himself and died in our place. He cried out, ‘Finished!’ Paid in full! Cancelled! The debit column of all our sin has been erased, deleted; there is nothing to pay. We are free to approach the Father with confidence because He looks upon us as He looks upon Jesus, pure, spotless and perfect.

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who has promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:19-23 NIV.

If Jesus did that for us at such cost to Himself, how can we risk even thinking that we can add any other way to His way? No! Jesus is the only way to the Father. And the only God who is the true God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the WAY to the Father, He is the TRUTH of everything He said and did, and He is the LIFE that He gives when we embrace Him and His Words and follow His way which takes us to the Father.

The Heart Of A True Shepherd

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THE HEART OF A TRUE SHEPHERD 

“‘The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and they know me — just as the Father knows me and I know the Father — and I lay down my life for the sheep.'” John 10:12-15 NIV.

Another indictment against the false shepherds of Israel! Once again the difference between the shepherd and the hireling is — money. The hired hand does not stake his life on the safety of the sheep. When danger threatens, he takes off to save his own skin, leaving the sheep to face the predators alone. The shepherd stands between the sheep and those who would devour them and defends them with his life.

Two men stand out in Scripture — apart from Jesus who literally gave His life for His sheep — who refused to abandon their flock but offered themselves in place of their people when unbelief and disobedience brought the judgment of God down on them.

Moses stood between the Israelites and God in the desert, pleading with God to remove his name from the book of life rather than destroy his people who had sinned grievously by worshipping a golden calf while he was up the mountain with God..

“So Moses went back to the Lord and said, ‘Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold.’ But now, please forgive their sin — but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.'” Exodus 32:31, 32 NIV.

God would not accept his sacrifice but He heard Moses’ plea for mercy and did not carry out His intention to wipe Israel out and start again with Moses. (Exodus 32:10, 14).

The other man who would willingly have given himself for his people was the Apostle Paul. “I speak the truth in Christ — I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit — I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself was cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, these of my own race, the people of Israel.” Romans 9:1-4a NIV.

How different from the Pharisee, Saul, who willingly arrested the same people and had them tried and put to death for believing in Jesus, now putting his life on the line for the same people he once tried to destroy! What changed his heart? It was the resurrected Jesus who appeared to him and captivated his heart, turning him into a passionate shepherd of his people.

After Peter’s denial of his Master, Jesus gave him the opportunity to be restored to his former commitment and loyalty to Him on the shore of Lake Galilee. He received a commission that carried him through his life to its end on a Roman cross. “Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.” He caught the vision that never left him and that he passed on to those who came after him.

“To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed. Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them — not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.” 1 Peter 5:1-3 NIV.

Peter had witnessed the fulfilment of Jesus’ words — “The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” He had been commissioned to wear his Rabbi’s yoke. It was therefore his responsibility to follow Him in everything He modelled as a faithful disciple and shepherd of His flock.

It saddens me that God’s shepherds are so quick to flee the flock and find another one elsewhere when the going gets tough. Instead of staying with the people through thick and thin and seeing them through difficult times, many pastors and ministers easily accept a “call” elsewhere, either because they are offered a better to deal or because they want to escape from difficult people.

I salute the ones who stay with the flock and are willing to lay down their lives for the sheep. They have the heart of a true shepherd.