2016-07-08
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Jesus is our Paradigm of worthiness Who gave us a model for how to live out our earthly lives. It was He Who sacrificed His physical life on the cross, so that all who would believe in Him could have everlasting life [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25]. There are some people who are evil and will be forgotten after their deaths, but Jesus was righteous and will never be forgotten. Last week, I was led to discuss COL 1: 15-17, which tells us that Jesus is the second personality of God in visible form. God, the Father, can’t be seen, but His impact (and Christ’s and the that of the Holy Spirit) can be deeply and profoundly experienced. Christ is the Firstborn of many brothers to be taken from death to eternal life [RO 8: 29] and all things were created by Him at the Father’s behest [COL 1: 16; 1 PET 1: 20-21]; He was created before any human or angel. In Christ, all things hold together.
COL 1: 18-20, “And He is the Head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the Firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.” We must remember that we have one God with three personalities, the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit [EPH 2: 19-22]. Each personality has His own function. The Father is the Creator, the Decision-maker. The Son [Jesus Christ], carries out the will of the Father and has the completeness of the Father in Him [JN 14: 9, 11]. The Holy Spirit dwells in the souls of believers in Jesus Christ, acting as Teacher and Conscience, God’s Mouthpiece on earth. The Holy Spirit was sent to us by the Son after His ascension into heaven [JN 14: 16-17, 25; RO 8: 26-27]. It is to Jesus Christ that Paul refers in HE 1: 3, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His Being sustaining all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Christ’s supremacy is the subject of HE 1: 6, “And again, when God brings His Firstborn into the world, He says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship Him.’”
Those humans who are ignorant of Who Jesus really is have a hard time accepting Christ’s supremacy over ordinary humans. That is why Paul writes, in Hebrews about Christ’s supremacy over Moses. The latter was highly respected by traditional Jews and Christians alike, but Moses was an ordinary human and not a deity. HE 3: 5-6, “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future. But Christ is faithful as a Son over God’s house. And we are His house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.” As long ago as Moses’ time, in DT 32: 43, Christ is spoken of in prophetic terms, but wasn’t understood either then or today by the traditionally Jewish people. “Rejoice, O nations with His people for He will avenge the blood of His servants; He will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for His land and people.” The Holy Spirit makes this clear to Messianic Jews and Christians, but those without His constant presence in their lives are either confused or serially reject this notion of Who Jesus is [1 COR 2: 14].
The issue of reconciliation comes up when we recall that we are “all sinners far from the glory of God” [RO 3: 23] due to having inherited sinful natures from Adam and Eve [GN 3: 1-6] and that we have added our own sins committed to that. Sin separates us from God. Jesus Christ’s Atonement on the cross opens the way to escaping the sure spiritual death that without it and our faith in Him would bring. It also reveals the love of God’s heart to make such a sacrifice of His Son for us. RO 5: 9-11, “Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more will we be saved from God’s wrath through Him! For if when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life! Not only is this so, but we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Despite being believers in Christ, many of us haven’t taken the time to realize just how profound is the impact of Christ’s Atonement on our lives. COL 1: 21-22, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation…” Satan means “accuser.” That is the main evil he commits. We are only vulnerable to him if we allow it. Sadly, we often forget the power we have to dismiss the evil one from our lives, given to us by Christ [EPH 1: 18-20]. This is the same power He used to chase the adversary away at the end of his trial in the wilderness [MT 4: 1-11]. We can still commit sins, but we now have the choice to reveal, genuinely confess, and stop them. We should each consider how this information applies to our individual and corporate lives.
PRAYER: O Lord, we come before You today, in reverence and awe, with heads bowed. You are supreme and You Son has all Your qualities. He alone is perfect enough to fulfill all that is expected of Him. Not only does He deserve our worship, but we should worship Him in all we believe and do. The Lord Jesus made it possible for us to be Your friends and to appeal to You with freedom and confidence that You hear all our prayers [EPH 3: 12; PS 116: 1]. We acknowledge Christ as superior to us in every way, that His wisdom is far greater than ours can ever be. He, as You and the Holy Spirit, is the Center of our lives and full-time Residents in our homes. We are trying to urge our congregations to put His word and Him at the Center of their lives as well. While we can’t see You, we can surely hear Your teaching through Christ and know You are with us 24/7. We welcome having You live among us and believe with all our hearts that having faith in Christ and being dead to sins has made us come alive in Him [RO 6: 11]. We acknowledge that everything about You is also the same with Christ. We pray we can honor Him with the conduct of our lives, we can remember to appeal to Him in prayer first when we need advice. Our lives are useless without the faith we profess with our hearts in Him [JN 15: 5]. We ask that You remain with us, through Him and the Holy Spirit, and that our obedient faith will lead us to an eternal life of sweet fellowship with You, in Your perfect time and way. We also ask that You impart sufficient courage and tenacity of faith in us that we may remain faithful and obedient to You throughout the rest of our earthly lives. Having asked for these things, we offer You thanks and praise for always being here with us to hear our prayers and giving them consideration. You are clearly a loving and generous God. We offer these prayers in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: We’ll look at Paul’s labor for the church, the concept of the mystery of God, and more of what Christ has done for us. It’s important to consider the impact of Christ’s Atonement and Resurrection in every aspect of our individual lives. I’m careful to protect confidentiality in writing these devotions, which is why I don’t bring in stories about others that are better kept private. But I’m not ashamed to admit my own mistakes of the past, even the serious ones. I wasn’t happy as a child, because I was reared in a spiritually and emotionally dysfunctional home. This led me to self-loathing, bad attitudes, and poor decision-making. Certainly that was the case in my first marriage. There is this time in life, usually from ages 18-30, when many important decisions need to be made, concerning education, career choices, which values of our parents will be held and which rejected, who we date and eventually marry, and so on. I wasn’t anywhere ready to get married the first time when I did at the age of not quite 18. The problem was I was thinking it would be an escape from what made me so unhappy. Instead, I jumped from the frying pan into the fire! All of us want to feel loved and needed by others. But when one doesn’t know God, he doesn’t know what being loved really is. I chat with atheists some times, and they are an angry, unhappy lot, to say the least. Naturally, I’m not privy as to why the Holy Spirit gives faith in God to some and not to others, but maybe I’ll know when I’m in heaven. My heart goes out to these unhappy people, because at one time I was one of them and know their misery. After fifteen years of abuse, my first marriage ended, and God came into my life quite gradually. I had it in my mind, I would never marry again, but God had another idea. IS 46: 9-10 tells us God will have His way in all things. And yes, He will! One of His desires was that at the age of 33 I would marry again—this time for the right reasons, and this time with the marriage lasting. The contrast is amazing, just as our God is! Maturity is gradual, and our lives on earth should be about gaining maturity in our faith in the Lord Jesus, just as in any other aspect of our lives. God alone knows the moment when we are sufficiently mature to return to His side in heaven. It’s different for different people. Meanwhile, we can do Kingdom-building with our lives while on earth, and knowing God through prayer and study of His word is a most-efficient way to achieve that. Praise and thanks be to God for giving us the love He does!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2016. All Rights Reserved.
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