2016-01-29
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Before going on to today’s topic, the Holy Spirit has reminded me to say something more about sanctification. HE 10: 14, “Because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” This statement wouldn’t be very easy to understand without putting it in context. To begin, there is RO 3: 23, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” This is a combination of inherited sin from the original sin [GN 3: 1-6] and any sin we ourselves commit. Yet with the sacrifice of His physical life on the cross, Jesus Christ, the only acceptable Sin-Substitute Sacrifice to God, He opens the way for our sins to be completely forgiven and forgotten [RO 3: 24-25; HE 8: 12; HE 10: 10, 17]. All one must do to take advantage of this tremendous blessing is to repent and accept Christ as his personal Savior. Why is this so crucial? It is because with faith in Christ, one is deemed acceptable in God’s sight (justified-RO 4: 3), given salvation [JN 3: 16], and eternally forgiven [1 JN 1: 9]. The issue of sin doesn’t stop with this. After all there is the rest of one’s earthly life for him to live. The difference is that he can now spend that time revealing sin (even subtle ones), genuinely confessing that sin, and stopping the thought and/or behavior. This on-going process is sanctification. It is a key part of our covenant relationship with God. Two things are happening: one is that God is working to perfect (purify) that person; the other is that we are doing our part to reveal, confess, and stop our sins before Him. The eventual goal of sanctification is glorification, the act of God bringing us, in His perfect time and way, to His side in heaven for a blissful and eternal fellowship with Him. Because Christ’s sacrifice opened the heavenly Holy of Holies to all who believe in Him, Christ is the Mediator of the Covenant of Grace. His death on the cross has paid the ransom for our freedom from the marketplace of slavery to sin. We can still sin, but we can choose not to sin—a choice people didn’t have under the Covenant of the Law [HE 9: 11-12, 15].
We need to recall EZK 36: 26-27 [God speaking], “I will give you an new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws.” We have no reason to ever say that God doesn’t keep His promises! That “inward transformation by the renewal of our mind” has definitely been made real [RO 12: 2]. That is why I am obeying the directive of the Holy Spirit in reminding all true believers and those others who will listen that God has truly made good on His promise to transform our hearts as He described in the prophecy of JER 31: 33, “…I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.” There is nothing legalistic intended here. Instead it is meant to be understood and practiced in one’s daily life. The emphasis is on understanding and wisdom, not on whether or not one eats a kosher regime, or on which days of the week he celebrates the Sabbath, or how he dresses. (You’ll recall that knowledge is the gathering of data, understanding is the organization of that data, and wisdom is the application of that knowledge in one’s everyday life).
There is a further prophecy found in God’s words in JER 31: 34 which begs to be fulfilled. “No longer will a man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord,’ because all will know Me from the least of them to the greatest.” For a person like me-- daily working to cooperate with the Lord in sanctification--this is a very, very important desire. I would no longer need to be working for In Search of Shalom (Peace) doing secured computer chats with people who don’t know the Lord Jesus or who are struggling in their covenant relationships with Him. It nearly broke my heart the other day when I was chatting with a sweet young woman who didn’t know how to forgive herself for having been in a bad marriage with a policeman and going through a divorce. There are marriages which are not ordained by God, which take place for the wrong reasons, for when the parties are too young, too emotionally immature to be married. We all know marriage is a large responsibility. I know personally from having been married twice that a wrong marriage can be hell on earth, and a right marriage can be one of life’s greatest joys. This young woman’s issues were ruining the quality of her life, causing her to live with horrific guilt. As our chat continued, it was clear that she has deep faith in Christ and simply needed encouragement to accept what her faith offers her. At other times I chat with Atheists, who are convinced that faith in Christ is simply a fairy tale. For them, I share my own experience with God’s intervention and the blessings of my covenant relationship with Him. I mention this, because when JER 31: 34 comes true, such heated chats with Atheists won’t ever be necessary again. What they don’t realize is that by chatting with ISOS in the first place, they are searching for the inner peace that faith in Christ gives. All I can say is that our divine Covenant Partner is hard at work bringing all He can back to His side in heaven, and that is hard work indeed! [See JN 6: 39-40; EPH 1: 4-5 for just how important to God this is].
PRAYER: O Lord, we approach Your throne with freedom and confidence that You love us and hear our prayers [EPH 3: 12]. For that and so much more, we are grateful and reverent. We acknowledge Your superiority and supremacy in the covenant relationships we have with You. You are a great God and a loving One [JN 14: 21; 1 JN 4 :19]. You have sacrificed Your Son, Jesus, on the cross, giving us a way to gain eternal life. Nothing we give up compares to that; no pain we suffer compares to the humiliation and pain that He suffered on our behalf. His blood shed for us coupled with the faith You gave us in Him is the greatest gift anyone has ever received. We are Your children, adopted members of Your family [RO 8: 14-16]. Your laws [the Ten Commandments] are written on our hearts and are forever stamped on our minds. You have sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, to speak on our behalves when we can’t, and to teach us Your ways [JN 14: 16-17; RO 8: 26-27]. Nowhere can we find a human, who, like You, not only forgives our inherited and genuinely confessed sins but also forgets them. The great mystery of our faith is Christ within us, the Holy Spirit to direct us. It is now made known to all who will listen [COL 1: 26-27; COL 2: 2-3]. COL 3: 3-4, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Your real life is Christ, and when He appears, then you will appear with Him and share in His glory.” This last passage is a huge motivation for belief in the truth of Your words and the encouragement they can give for us to make our lives right with You. We offer You our utmost thanks and praise for the direction and blessings You give us. In the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: At the behest of the Holy Spirit, we will continue this “Light Pierces Darkness” segment of these “Our Covenant” messages with further discussion of how external laws are made internal by God, with our cooperation. Those who have been true believers for a long time can attest to how one’s thinking and ways of seeing the events and people in their lives have changed from the way they were before they came to faith. I’ve often expressed the belief that even people who are born into Christian homes must be personally converted to Christ. Of course the same is true for former outsiders (those not reared in homes with Christ) like myself. I used to feel depressed, guilty, full of self-loathing, unimportant, and unloved before I came to faith in Christ. Inner peace seemed to me to be only for other people. I was the eternal victim; everything bad that was going on in my life was someone else’s fault. This is hardly the profile for a successful, happy person. With my faith in Christ, my eyes were opened to another way to think and to live. It took awhile for me to learn to forgive myself, just as Christ had forgiven me [COL 3: 13]. I’m by no means perfect and still have a way to go before the Lord Jesus pronounces my final judgment. But I have a totally different way of viewing Him and myself. I can now take responsibility for my own attitudes and actions. I now know I’m not alone and that the Lord is always with me. That I can turn to Him at any time of the day or night, comes as a huge comfort. I know for sure that His way is right, and that His wisdom is far better than my own [IS 55: 8-9]. There are times when the Lord has had to teach me some very hard lessons, particularly in the issues of impatience, pride, honesty, and others. My heart is open to the Holy Spirit, but there are times when these lessons have been very painful. The net result of learning them, however, has been a far better quality of life than without having done so. It is because of the Holy Spirit that I can share my life with each of you this way. I can take no credit for these things. PS 115: 1, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to Your name be the glory, because of Your love and faithfulness.” Praise and thanks be to Him forever!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2015. All Rights Reserved.
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