2016-01-22
Good Morning Dear Ones,
We saw last week how Christ is our Reality and that during His earthly life, He knew the sacrifice of His physical life on the cross would be the only acceptable Atonement for the sins of mankind [HE 10: 4-7]. It was God’s will that Christ would atone for our sins, as seen in 1 PET 1: 20-21, “He [Christ] was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through Him you believe in God, Who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him, and so your faith and hope are in God.”
While we’ve studied this before, it is important enough to repeat that Christ would then become the Mediator of the covenant. Sin is the reason a Mediator is needed in the first place. Let’s look at what we learn in 2 COR 5: 14-17. “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him Who died for them and was raised again. So that from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” I wanted to better understand the last phrase in verse 14 (above in italics). Because Christ died for all, He involved all in His death. For some, His death would confirm their own death, but for others those who by faith would become united with Him. His death was their death to sin and self, so they now live in and with the resurrected Christ. COL 3: 3-4 really puts this in focus. “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Your real life is Christ and when He appears, then you too will appear with Him and share His glory.” And this new self that emerges resulting from faith in Christ is different indeed than the old self, for the mystery long hidden is revealed to all who believe in Christ, as we see in COL 1: 26-27 and COL 2: 2-3. (COL 1: 27b) “…this mystery which is Christ in you, the hope of glory…(COL 2: 2b-3) … the mystery of God, namely Christ, in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
We find ourselves, once we come to faith in Christ, no longer simply asking, “What’s in it for me?”, because Christ has given us a way to know that living for Him opens the way to a far better quality of life and greatly increased happiness. Our old self would be negative; our new selves find our thinking greatly changed, our minds totally renewed. RO 14: 7-9, “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we will live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that He might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.” While human priests can’t take away sin, our High Priest [Covenant Partner] in heaven, Who sits next to God certainly did [HE 10: 12]. It is He Who is our Mediator in heaven and Who opened the heavenly Holy of Holies to all with His blood shed for us [HE 9: 11-12].
It’s necessary to bring up justification once more, i.e. being deemed acceptable to God. In GN 15: 6, we find Abraham deemed acceptable to God, but our understanding of what this means is only rudimentary at that point. Now, we can dig deeper for a clearer understanding, through RO 4: 25 and HE 10: 14, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification…Because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” A key understanding of what this means to our loving Covenant Partner is revealed by a statement He has often repeated, (here in HE 10: 15-17). “The Holy Spirit also testifies about this. First He says, ‘This is the covenant I will make with them after that time,’ says the Lord. ‘I will put My laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds. Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’” How many humans do we know that both forgive and forget any wrongdoing? As for the on-going process of sanctification, i.e. genuine revelation and confession of sin coupled with stoppage of the behavior, that is a small pain to endure in comparison to the alternative to salvation! What a loving heart our Lord has! We are truly a blessed people when we have faith in Jesus Christ. His sacrifice for our benefit is huge. While we can never be as perfect as He is, He is giving us a chance to be the best we can be (in God’s sight). We must be diligent in cooperating with the Lord in sanctification, so that our new selves are really new—a great departure from the time when the evil one had us on a sure path to spiritual death, and we allowed his evil to control us. We no longer have to do that, and this is a great weight off our shoulders. Praise and thanks be to Him!
PRAYER: O Lord, we can never praise and thank You enough for sending Your Son, Jesus Christ, to minister to us and then, to die on the cross for us. His Atonement for our sins is the greatest sacrificial act ever [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25]. We know we can still sin, but now we have the choice not to sin. It isn’t always the easiest path to take, but it is the right one in Your sight. We acknowledge that we are still sinners, but want to cooperate with You as You work to perfect (purify) us. We pledge to work at revealing our sins, and with a genuine heart to confess and stop them as best we can. Our understanding is that we were created to be able to do this, even though it may be difficult and painful at times. Each of us knows of stubborn habit patterns that are sinful in our lives. While we don’t always have to confess them to each other, we do have to confess them to You. There can be no forward progress in our spiritual and ethical maturity without genuine confession and stopping the sin. In the course of our prayer we want You to know that Your efforts on our parts are deeply appreciated. We can’t say it enough. You are our Lord; Your words are in our hearts, and they motivate us to understand: Who You are, what a powerful Source of goodness You are, and why it is so important that we reverently and faithfully obey Your commands. You have given us Your word for the reasons stated in 2 TIM 3: 16-17, and You have shown us the power of prayer in PS 86: 5, 7, 11, and 15. You are the best Friend we can ever have. Our faith in You is strengthened in many ways, e.g. daily study of Your word, frequent and genuine prayer on behalf of self and others, being active in a Christ-led congregation, and interacting with our human covenant partners—making lasting, friendships with them. We acknowledge what a blessing You gave us when You made us Your friends [JN 15: 13-17; RO 5: 9-11]. We thank and praise You, stand in awe of You, and utter these heartfelt prayers in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: Understanding of the content of what God teaches us is far more important to Him than any animal sacrifices or legalism crafted by mankind. Next week, we will look at how external laws are made internal. In the meanwhile, I would like to share one of my reasons for feeling the need to write about this. As you know, I answer seeker’s questions in secured computer chats twice a week for In Search of Shalom, a Toronto-based organization for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To learn more about this organization, visit their web page or www.chataboutjesus.com. NeedHim.org provides us with amazing software that includes automatic translation, so people from all over the world can chat with us in their own language, and we can understand them in ours. I frequently chat with Atheists, and they are, for the most part, either unhappy and/or confused. Many of them have trouble discussing intangible things like faith. I often must fall back on HE 11: 1, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.” Most of them insist that the only true things are things they can see and hold in their hands. The tangibles in our lives are only a part of them. For those of us who believe, Christ is our Reality. This statement brings direction to our lives and causes us to mature spiritually as we discover hidden talents and interact with each other in a godly way. On a recent episode of “Blue Bloods” [a TV cop show that is beautifully written and acted, Friday nights on CBS] a group of cops had guns pointed at a mental patient refusing to turn over a knife she had just used on someone. Two more cops, who had interacted in a godly way with her in the recent past, asked their colleagues to stand down. They did, and these two cops talked the patient into dropping the knife on the ground. No shots needed to be fired. I mention this because it led up to one of these cops later asking the police commissioner to improve their education on dealing with mental patients. This incident is one example of how a godly approach to life can make a difference. Each of us has difficult people in his life, ones that I call “EGR folks,” where the EGR stands for “Extra Grace Required.” Without our faith in Christ, we, like Atheists, wouldn’t know what grace is, much less extra grace. EPH 2: 8-10 clarifies that beautifully. When one thinks about it, we are truly blessed to be in God’s sight and to enjoy the direction/teaching of the Holy Spirit. Once again, I say with hands lifted to Him, “Praise and thanks be to God!”
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2015. All Rights Reserved.
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