Purity 440 06/09/2021 Purity 440 Podcast
Good morning.
It’s Wednesday, and I
thought what better way to celebrate getting over the hump and commenting on
the high temperatures we have been experiencing, forecasted to be 87 degrees
locally, by sharing this mammoth southwestern summit.
So it looks like today
may be hotter uphill climb than we are used to making in early June but by taking
the proper precautions and by keeping our eyes on the One who has crowned us in
victory, we can crest the peak of this work week and rejoice as we adapt and
overcome.
Man can do a lot in his
own efforts, but Jesus said that even what man considers impossible is possible
with God.
So no matter what mountain
you may be facing in this hot and dry season, remember to keep walking and
talking with God. He will keep you company
along the way and will give you the strength and wisdom to traverse all the
peaks and valleys that lie in your path.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Romans 6:23
(NKJV)
23 For the wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Today’s verse warns
us of the consequences of “missing the mark” and reminds us of what we have in
our relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Romans 6:23
should be in our evangelism tool kit because it tells us the hard facts of life. Sin is an offense that carries a death
sentence. A simple Q & A of the Ten Commandments will show anyone that they
have sinned by not perfectly following God’s instructions. This fact should convict all of us and lead
us to ask: How can I be saved?
The answer is
simple. God’s gift to us is Jesus Christ as His sinless life, death, and resurrection
made a way for our salvation. The question
is: will you accept God’s gift by placing your faith in Jesus?
I hope anyone
reading this on the blog or hearing this message will put their faith in Christ
and experience the new eternal life that God so graciously gives. Our purpose for being alive is finding the
grace of God.
But we should
also consider Romans 6:23 as an instruction on how to live our lives as well as
a good evangelical tool.
Once we have
been saved by faith in Christ, although we are free from the power of sin, we
still have free will and can choose to sin.
Why not sin? Christ
paid for them all, you might as well make His suffering worth it by sinning it
up right?
I wish I could
say I didn’t have similar thoughts when I first came to Christ. I figured God knew me so He would understand
that I just couldn’t stop sinning the way I did.
But even though
God’s grace had me covered, and still has me covered, those wages of death that
sin earns are still felt in the life of a believer. The conviction of sin is worse for those who
have given their lives to Christ because we know that we are “not supposed to
be doing this” and that our sin gets in the way of our relationship with God.
There was many
a morning where I would ask God for forgiveness for the things I did and would
feel restored, only to have to do it all over again the next morning as I felt
trapped in a cycle of sin that I felt powerless to stop.
Although I had
eternal life, I was still receiving my wages of death. What’s the deal, God?
But then I
understood that although He found me in darkness, the Lord didn’t want me to stay
there. When I found the truth, I was given
the revelation of just how much my sin was hurting me, those around me, and my
relationship with the Lord.
I prayed for
deliverance several times, but I had to stop crying out to God to do an instant
miraculous work and instead had to show my trust of His power to deliver me by
placing my faith in Him everyday and by choosing to say no to temptation and
yes to His ways.
So, if you are
saved but somehow can’t get past a besetting sin, you can overcome by first
believing in the new life that you already have and then by leaning on the Lord
to carry you away from your darkness.
He’s not going
to drag you out of the darkness. You must do your part too. They don’t call it lying in the Spirit, our
faith is described as walking in the Spirit.
But just like a toddler learning to walk for the first time needs his
parents to hold them up, you are going to need the Lord to hold you up and
encourage you in your efforts at righteous living.
After you start
taking steps, you will be able to walk further and further distances in your
faith as you grow stronger and mature.
So take the Lord’s hand, keep your eyes on Him, and listen to what He
says. He will see you through and will
help you to experience the life you always wanted but never thought you could
do.
As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org
where I always share insights from prominent Christian counselors to assist my
brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue with Dr. Neil Anderson’s Victory
Over the Darkness, continuing in Chapter 2, with the section “New Life Requires
New Birth”.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes
and encourage all to purchase Dr. Anderson’s books for your own private study
and to support His work. If you need this title you can find it online at several
sites for less than $15.00:
New Life
Requires New Birth
We weren't born in Christ. We were born dead in our
trespasses and sins (see Ephes. 2:1). What
is God's plan for transforming us from being in Adam to being in Christ? Jesus
said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). Physical
birth gains only physical life for us. Spiritual life, the eternal life Christ
promises to those who come to Him, is gained only through spiritual birth (see John 3:36).
What does it mean to be spiritually
alive in Christ? The moment you were born again your soul came into union with
God in the same way Adam was in union with God before the Fall. You became
spiritually alive and your name was written in the Lamb's book of life (see Rev. 21:27).
Eternal life is not something you get when you die.
Dear believer, you are spiritually
alive in Christ right now. You will never be more spiritually alive than you
are right now. The only thing that will change when you die physically is that
you will exchange your mortal body for a new resurrected one. Your spiritual
life in Christ, which began when you personally trusted Him, will merely
continue on. Salvation is not a future addition; it is a present
transformation. That transformation occurs at spiritual birth, not physical
death.
New
Life Brings New Identity
Being a Christian is not just a matter of getting
something; it is a matter of being someone. A Christian is not simply a person
who is forgiven and goes to heaven. A Christian, in terms of his or her deepest
identity, is a saint, a spiritually born child of God, a divine masterpiece, a
child of light, a citizen of heaven. Being born again transformed you into
someone who didn't exist before. What you receive as a Christian isn't the
point; it is who you are. It is not what you do as a Christian that determines
who you are; it is who you are that determines what you do (see 2 Cor. 5:17;
Ephes. 2:10; 1 Peter 2:9,
10; 1 John
3:1, 2).
Understanding your identity in Christ
is essential for living the Christian life. People cannot consistently behave
in ways that are inconsistent with the way they perceive themselves. You don't
change yourself by your perception. You change your perception of yourself by
believing the truth. If you perceive yourself wrongly, you will live wrongly
because what you are believing is not true. If you think you are a no-good bum,
you will probably live like a no-good bum. If, however, you see yourself as a
child of God who is spiritually alive in Christ, you will begin to live
accordingly. Next to a knowledge of God, a knowledge of who you are is by far
the most important truth you can possess.
The major strategy of Satan is to
distort the character of God and the truth of who we are. He can't change God
and he can't do anything to change our identity and position in Christ. If,
however, he can get us to believe a lie, we will live as though our identity in
Christ isn't true.
New
Life Results in a New Identity
Have you noticed that one of the most frequently used
words of identity for Christians in the New Testament is "saint"? A
saint is literally a holy person. Yet Paul and the other writers of the
Epistles used the word generously to describe common, ordinary, everyday
Christians like you and me. For example, Paul's salutation in 1 Cor. 1:2
reads: "To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been
sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call
upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours."
Notice that Paul didn't say we are
saints by hard work. He clearly states we are saints by calling. The tendency
of the church is to believe that saints are people who have earned their lofty
title by living a magnificent life or by achieving a certain level of maturity.
In the Bible, believers are described as "saints," which means holy
ones (e.g., Romans
1:7; 1 Cor.
1:2; 2 Cor.
1:1; Phil. 1:1).
Being a saint does not necessarily
reflect any present measure of growth in character, but it does identify those
who are rightly related to God. In the King James Version of the
Bible, believers are called "saints," "holy ones" or
"righteous ones" more than 240 times. In contrast, unbelievers are
called "sinners" more than 330 times. Clearly, the term
"saint" is used in Scripture to refer to the believer, and
"sinner" is used in reference to the unbeliever.
Although the New Testament provides
plenty of evidence that the believer sins, it never clearly identifies the
believer as a sinner. Paul's reference to himself in which he declares, "I
am foremost [of sinners]" is often referred to as contrary (1 Tim. 1:15).
Despite the use of the present tense by the apostle, several things make it
much preferable to consider his description of himself as "the foremost
[of sinners]" as a reference to his preconversion opposition to the
gospel. Taking this as a truthful statement, he indeed was the chief of all
sinners.
Nobody opposed the work of God more
zealously than he did, in spite of the fact that he could boast, "as to
zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law,
found blameless" (Phil. 3:6). For
several reasons, I believe this refers to what Paul was before he came to
Christ.
First, the reference to himself as a
sinner is in support of the first half of the verse in 1 Timothy:
"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim. 1:15).
The reference to "the ungodly and sinners" a few verses earlier (1 Tim. 1:9),
along with the other New Testament uses of the term "sinners" for
those who are outside salvation, shows that the sinners whom Christ came to
save were outside of salvation rather than believers who can still choose to
sin.
Second, Paul's reference to himself as
a sinner is immediately followed by the statement, "And yet . . . I found
[past tense] mercy"(1 Tim. 1:16),
clearly pointing to the past occasion of his conversion. Paul continued to be
amazed at the mercy of God toward him who was the "worst" sinner. A
similar present evaluation of himself based upon the past is perceived when the
apostle said, "I am [present] the least of the apostles, who am not fit to
be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God" (1 Cor. 15:9).
Because of his past action, Paul considered himself unworthy of what by God's
grace and mercy he presently was, an apostle who was in no respect
"inferior to the most eminent apostles" (2 Cor. 12:11).
Third, although declaring that he is
the worst sinner, the apostle at the same time declared that Christ had
strengthened him for the ministry, having considered him "faithful,"
or trustworthy, for the ministry to which he was called (see 1 Tim. 1:12).
The term "sinner," therefore, did not describe him as a believer, but
rather was used in remembrance of what he was before Christ transformed him.
The only other places in Scripture
that could be referring to Christians as sinners are two references found in
James. The first, "Cleanse your hands, you sinners" (James 4:8) is one
of 10 verbal commands urging anyone who reads this general epistle to make a
decisive break with the old life. This is best understood as calling the reader
to repentance and therefore salvation.
The second use of "sinner,"
found in James
5:19, 20, appears to have a similar reference to unbelievers. The
"sinner" is to be turned "from the error of his way" and
thus be saved from "death." Because this is most likely spiritual
death, it suggests that the person was not a believer. In both of these uses of
"sinner," James is using the term as it was used among the Jews for
those who disregarded the law of God and flouted standards of morality.
The fact that these
"sinners" are among those addressed by James does not necessarily
mean they are believers, for Scripture teaches that unbelievers can be among
the saints (see 1 John
2:19), as there surely are today in our churches. Referring to them as
"sinners" fits the description of those who have not come to
repentance and faith in God, as the rest of Scripture clearly identifies
believers as saints who still have the capacity to sin.
The status of saint is parallel to the
concept of being God's called or elect ones. Believers are those who are
"beloved of God . . . called as saints" (Romans 1:7; see 1 Cor. 1:2).
They are "chosen [or elected] of God, holy, and beloved" (Col. 3:12). They
are "chosen . . . through sanctification by the Spirit" (2 Thes. 2:13;
see 1 Peter
1:1, 2). God chose them and separated them from the world to be His people.
As a result, believers are "holy brethren" (Hebrews 3:1).
By the election and calling of God,
believers are set apart unto God and now belong to the sphere of His holiness.
We begin our walk with God as immature babes in Christ, but we are indeed
children of God. We are saints who sin, but we have all the resources in Christ
we need not to sin. Paul's words to the Ephesians are an interesting
combination of these two concepts of holiness. Addressing them as
"saints," or holy ones, in Ephes. 1:1, he
goes on in Ephes.
1:4 to say that God "chose us in Him [Christ] . . . that we should be
holy and blameless before Him." By God's choosing, they were already holy
in Christ, but the purpose was that they would mature in character as they
conformed to the image of God.
As believers, we are not trying to
become saints; we are saints who are becoming like Christ. In no way does this
deny the continuous struggle with sin, but it does give the believer some hope
for the future. Many Christians are dominated by the flesh and deceived by the
devil. However, telling Christians they are sinners and then disciplining them
if they don't act like saints seems counterproductive at best and inconsistent
with the Bible at worst.
Victory Over the Darkness: Realizing the Power of Your Identity in Christ.
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
God bless
you all!
Join our “Victory
over the Darkness” or “The Bondage Breaker” series of Discipleship Classes via
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