2004-06-11
Good Morning Cherished Readers,
I really feel like today is God’s day, as I am writing this message the day after a glorious Easter celebration of His resurrection. Since this series of messages is about true faith and this segment about seeing some issues we’ve studied from the Scriptures with His new perspective, I would be remiss in not reminding all of us how blessed we really are. That’s because of Christ’s great sacrifice on the cross, so that we could come to faith in Him and be saved for eternal life in heaven with the Father and Him. Hallelujah!
Today’s message is the one where I get to write about the giving of the Covenant of Grace. That is the next step for us to examine in God’s enormous and on-going task of civilizing mankind by the transforming of their minds and hearts. I never tire of citing RO 12: 1-2, in the hope that by now we’ve all memorized this crucial passage. “So then, my brothers, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship that you should offer. Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by the renewal of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God-what is good and is pleasing to Him and is perfect.” This statement reveals so much about our Abba. It tells us that He has the power to inwardly transform our minds by renewing them, that He loves us enough to want to do this, and that He is inviting us to join Him in His work-that of bringing others to the Holy Spirit where they too can have their hearts changed to be able to travel that hard path from the narrow gate [MT 7: 13-14] which leads to eternal life. Christ’s example of not allowing all the pain and suffering of the world’s sins to stop Him from obeying the Father’s will establishes the kind of example the Father wants us to follow. And remember, nothing the Father is asking us to do is as difficult as what the Son did for us, nor is the Father ever asking us to do a task for Him that He hasn’t already fitted us to do [EPH 2: 8-10].
The blood that Christ shed on the cross opened the way for salvation and forgiveness for mankind. It sealed the new Covenant of Grace [1 COR 11: 25-26]. This was no accident, as it was prophesied back in JER 31: 31-34, which I hope you will review. God’s will for mankind is crystal clear in this passage. I believe that God decided on His plan of salvation for mankind long before the earth was created. It was always God’s plan that our Passover Lamb [1 COR 5: 7-8] would be slain for us to remove the stain of our sins. 1 PET 1: 20-21, “He had been chosen by God before the creation of the world and was revealed in these last days for your sake. Through Him you believe in God, Who raised Him from death and gave Him glory; and so your faith and hope are fixed on God.”
I’m very certain that the Father knew ahead of time there would be a large portion of His human creation that would reject Him. Yet, our loving Father never gives up on His plan. Since Christ is His second personality, the one we can perceive with our limitations, Christ uttered His purpose was to bring as many people to the Father for eternal life as were given to Him [JN 6: 39-40; COL 1: 19-20]. No doubt the Father has suffered some real pain and disappointment over those who reject Him. I’m a good example of a person upon whom the Father never gave up. Despite some pretty bad behavior and attitudes in my youth, the Father has brought me to serve a full time ministry for Him. This transformation of my own heart happened, even through God knows He has more work on me to do to get me ready for that last blowing of the heavenly shofar [ram’s horn trumpet] before the “meeting in the air” between Christ and the believers [1 THESS 4: 13-17]. What He is doing to transform me is one insignificant example of the gradual chipping away of rebellion that He is doing on many people, most more important than me. That’s why I stated above that this is an on-going process of God’s efforts to civilize mankind. My understanding from what I have read in the Scriptures is that God sees things in people that humans can’t see. That is how He took someone who was acting as His enemy, Saul of Tarsus, and transformed him into one of His greatest servants ever [AC 9: 1-6].
Because of the action of rabbinical commentators taking ten clear commandments and ballooning them up to 613 laws that no one, except Jesus Christ, could obey, God knew that something had to be done to lead the people back to Him. That is why all of this ballooning had become the “curse of the law.” The question of how Christ became “the fulfillment of the law” [RO 10: 4] needed clarification. We find that in two Scriptures: DT 21: 23, “It [a dead body] must be buried the say day, because a dead body hanging on a post brings God’s curse on the land. Bury the body, so that you will not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” GA 3: 13-14, “But by becoming a curse for us Christ has redeemed us from the curse that the Law brings; for the Scripture [DT 21: 23] says, ‘Anyone who is hanged on a tree is under God’s curse.’ Christ did this in order that the blessing which God promised to Abraham might be given to Gentiles by means of Christ Jesus, so that through faith we might receive the Spirit promised by God.” Another way of saying that Christ is the fulfillment of the Law is to say that He has put the Law to an end, as it had become a curse, so that everyone who believes is put right with Himself. RO 7: 6, “Now, however, we are free from the Law, because we died to that which once held us prisoners. No longer do we serve in the old way of a written law, but in the new way of the Spirit.”
PRAYER: O Lord, we acknowledge Your great power and love. Our commemoration of Lent and Easter has brought us to where we can begin to understand the enormity of the sacrifice You made of Your Son on the cross for us. Grace is unmerited favor, something that in our past sin-driven lives we never understood. Even today, we have so much more to learn about the nature and the extent of the grace You give us. We stand before Your throne as sinners in utter need of Your constant love, guidance, and presence in our lives. We know You alone have inwardly transformed our minds by their renewal and that You alone have given us power over death by our faith in Christ. No simple prayer like this one is sufficient to express our gratitude. Yet, we offer it anyway, knowing that we can show it by our faithful trust and obedience of You. We dedicate ourselves today to that purpose. You have called us to lives of holiness in both the OT in LV 11: 44-45; 19: 2 and in the NT in 1 PET 1: 15-16. We accept that call and confess our sin before You. [Pause and do that now]. We are reminded of Your wonderful response in PS 84: 11, “For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless.” Seeing Moses and Elijah in the account of the transfiguration [MT 17:3] is all the proof we need of Your goodness, Dear Father. We ask that You help us to keep our eyes focused on You and our hearts open to Your teaching. In Christ’s holy name, we pray. Amen.
Next week, we are going to examine how the limitations of the Law don’t render it evil. The Ten Commandments as the Lord gave them to Moses are just as applicable today as they were that day they were brought down from Mt. Sinai by Moses to be given to the people. This is one of the examples of how God blesses us mightily when there are no spins put on the truth by human intermediaries. God wants us to have a relationship directly with Him. That doesn’t mean that we should eschew the fellowship of our brothers and sisters in Christ or that we don’t need some leadership from Christ-led church leaders. It simply means that God reaches down to each and every person through the Scriptures and prayer. Congregations are unified when the Scriptures are at the center of everything they do. Pastors, teachers, administrators work on one team with God’s purpose when they are Christ-led without intervening human agendas. My prayer for each of you today is that you will take the time to find a congregation that fits this description if you are not already in one. God is waiting and eager to bless you beyond your fondest dreams.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn