Thursday, July 30, 2015

Reconciliation, A Complete Gift

Reconciliation is an accomplished fact. It is entirely outside of yourself, and it is simply to be received. There is a new view of living, no longer for self, but for God; to die to self and live to Christ. 

God has taken the initiative to reconcile man back to himself. God is not reconciled to man, as though God were partly to blame for the enmity. Rather, man is reconciled to God, for it is man who moved away from God.

When people need to be reconciled to one another, it normally involves a situation where fault lies on both sides to some degree. Not so with the case between man and God, man has moved away from God, and it is man who needs to be reconciled back to God, not God back to man.

The basic idea of reconciling is to change or make otherwise. This is the reverse of Hellenistic religion, where it is the human being that seeks restoration of the gods’ favor, and also of Judaism, where confession of sin and repentance are the means by which reconciliation with God is sought.

It is not that we must reconcile ourselves to God. Rather, we are to be reconciled, that is, to accept what God has already achieved. It is not merely that we acquire a right standing or do good works; we actually become righteous.

For through what Christ had accomplished, we truly assume his righteousness, just as Christ assumed our sin. If our debts are not posted to our account, it is because someone else has legally assumed them. Christ righteousness ours, and our sin his.



Sunday, July 19, 2015

Just a Thought "40"

What a wonderful blessings is this blessing of sainthood, and it is ours this very instance, because saint has been our moniker in heaven, it is this very moment and has been so since we first trusted Jesus Christ.

Being made the righteousness of God himself in our union with a perfectly righteous savior, then being hid with Christ in God gives us a tremendously safe and special place, because what child does God see, when he deals with us, God sees his son, Jesus Christ.

We have been given new motivation to serve, but thank God that our destiny, our blessings are not dependent on our serving, Christ did the serving for us, he did it faithfully as well as it could be done, he is our righteousness.

When we get our eyes off our new identity, and try to produce in our daily experience the acceptance God has already extended to us, we will struggle, because the enemy will try to convince us that we are an unworthy, unacceptable, sin-sick person who will never amount to anything in God’s eyes.

We are saints whom God has declared righteous, believing the enemies lie will lock us into a defeated, fruitless life, but believing God’s truth about who we are, will set us free. It is imperative to our growth and maturity that we believe God’s truth about who we are in Christ.




Some people are extremely proud of their humility, there are those who put on a show humility for the sake of elevating self. The selflessness Paul has in mind in his epistles does not point to itself, it does not tell others how selfness it is in order to call attention to it’s self, it does not seek a response from others, it does not have to make an appeal to the emotions of others for the purpose of calling attention to it’s self, true selflessness would point to the selflessness of someone else, rather than it’s self.

One serving of self, leads to another serving of self, words spoken in haste, lead to other words spoken in haste, harmful words to further harmful words, we serve the sin nature rather than our Savior, as we serve self, rather than the Body of saints to whom we are as equally and intimately joined, as we are joined to our Savior.

Apart from trusting Jesus Christ as Savior, human righteousness comes from self-interest-motivation, it is self-glorifying, and while it may be of earthly benefit, that will not cut it when it comes to meeting the demands of God’s perfect justice. We cannot use experience to prove the validity of our doctrinal position, we must always use doctrine to prove the validity of our experience.

Emotion can lead us down the path, and will oftentimes, most likely lead us down the wrong path, when emotion becomes the governor of our intellect, rather than the doctrinally governed intellect becoming the ruler of our emotions. Emotion should never be the fuel, we should never be emotionally driven, but doctrinally driven. 

Unbelievers and believers alike struggle with the innate sense of right and wrong, and they are drawn toward that desire to fulfill the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, that is the sin nature working in opposition to the conscience, to have a person go in a direction contrary to that inner sense of right and wrong that is common to all humankind. 





Attitude always precedes action, worry never robs tomorrow of it’s sorrow, it only saps today of it’s joy, we all have worries and care, the only impact worry will ever have is on our health. When a believer’s behavior is consistently inconsistent with what that believer professes to believe, the answer lies in a failure to fully appreciate one or more aspects of the foundational truths.

As we understand what God accomplished for us through his son, and build upon that foundation the truths of who he has made us to be by placing us into his son, we begin to view ourselves as God views us, and there is great security to be found in doing so.

It is difficult for the human mind, apart from letting divine viewpoint, replace human viewpoint to lay hold of the magnitude of what the grace of God is all about, and what that grace has accomplished on behalf of every signal person who has trust what Jesus Christ accomplished. Grace is that which the human race can not earn, does not deserve and will never merit.

The truth Paul has proclaimed in all of his epistles is we could not get right with God in a million life times of trial and error, we could never make ourselves right with God, God had to do what we could not do for ourselves.

Truth designed to give us stability, is truth designed to give us security, God did not intend that believers be insecure, God stabilizes us in the book of Romans, we need to be less interested in trying to become something, or trying to do something, and we need to become a whole lot more interested in learning about who we already are, that is the key.

Grace is God’s work for people, and encompasses everything we receive from God, he is free to do now for ungodly people who take him at his word, we must understand that God has predetermined to glorify us. In fact, he has predestined us to that glorification, we are objects of God’s purpose, because God had a purpose in mind where grace age believers are concerned, and he predetermined through his own decree that his purpose would stand, it will come to pass no matter what. 




Redemption and forgiveness, this is a major focal point of the secret, when it’s come to what God is now revealed, sin no longer being the issue with God, we already have redemption and forgiveness.

It’s not things we need to seek from God, but things God’s already accomplished for us, we need simply believe they are ours in order to appropriate in our own thinking, what has already been accomplished on our behalf.

Our redemption is complete, our forgiveness is all complete, all upfront, both are past tense accomplishments that Paul would have us acknowledge and proclaim, who accomplished them for us, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Israel was continually being called upon to repent, to change their thinking. John called upon the nation to repent, the 12 called upon Israel to repent, and Jesus called upon the nation to repent, God wanted them to change their thinking about the source of their righteousness and the identity of their Messiah.

Righteousness could never come from them, and that is where they had to change their thinking, this was the change of mind confession that God wanted his earthly nation to make. What do most church people think when they hear the word repentance?

Most would say to repent means to have Godly sorrow that leads to repentance. Others would say that to repent means to turn around and go the other direction, sin no more, is that not what first comes to mind when we see the word repentance from our religious upbringing, this is what is commonly taught in the hallways of religion.




Paul has something he can not escape, the struggle that was taking place with him, his flesh as opposed to God’s power from on high dwelling within him. The very fact this saved person continues to possess a sin nature or self bent always opposing that which God desires, is the very thing that keeps a saved person from accomplishing righteousness through performance.

It is one thing to begin right, then to hear false doctrine and move out in the left field somewhere, because we are hearing something after we have believed Paul’s good news. It is another thing to have never heard the proper good news of Paul to begin with, and to have begun with the thinking that we were earning God’s favor through something that we did or we would do.

Paul showed how some people become content to trust in their own obedience in order to stand justified in the eyes of a perfectly just God, they were crediting their righteous works for a superior position before God. We see that these people had chosen to believe a wrong message, they had believed correctly to begin with, and then they had chosen to believe those who used the scriptures to steal and hide the truth of a perfectly justified status before God by grace alone through faith alone in the accomplishments of Jesus Christ. 





Not only did Paul face the doctrinally issues that people had then, much as they have now, he had to face the continuing conflict people had with one another in those assemblies. Problems arise, when people arrive, the more people we have, the more problems we will have.

Love is what the carnal Corinthians lacked, that lack of love was evidence in the divisions and factions within their fellowships. Love is the bond that unifies and edifies other members of the Body of Christ, love is the operating principle of doctrinal wisdom.

The agape behavioral glue that binds together the believer with all their doctrinal knowledge and their positional perfection to other members of the Body of Christ, that is how God designed the new creation in Christ to operate.

Love is the behavioral glue, attitudinal adhesive that God intended to keep the Body of Christ functioning smoothly and operation efficiently and effectively. Love is the bond that unifies and edifies other members of the Body of Christ, love is the operating principle of doctrinal wisdom.

Did pride not cause the divisions and factions in Corinth over the gifts given as a sign to unbelieving Israel. Pride cause God to turn away from Israel as his chosen channel of blessing and call forth a brand new apostle to initiate a brand new program with the establishment of a brand new creation called the Body of Christ.




It is surprising how many people think Jesus Christ died for the sins they have committed up to a point, but then, from that point on, they have got to keep those sins taken out of the way. Christ paid the price to deliver the human race from God’s justice, yet, with Christ paying the price necessary to satisfy God’s justice for ALL the sins of ALL the world, there are those who would accuse Paul of lying.

A Christ established reconciliation is the core ingredient in Paul’s good news, God has reconciled the world to himself, Paul makes that abundantly clear, God is not imputing people’s sins unto them, because Jesus Christ paid the penalty for those sins.

Judicial satisfaction for sins is what reconciliation is all about, God is not counting, reckoning, imputing, or charging people’s sins to their account, and for a very good reason, he charged those sins to his son’s account.


The doctrinal transaction called Justification has to do with God recognizing someone to be righteous. God will recognize those who take him at his word, concerning the price Christ became on their behalf, to resolve God’s justice for their sins. Justification is a recognition of righteousness that comes from God to those who believe God, it does not go away, it does not abate over time, it is ours forever. 

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Joy

God’s grace is a vital aspect of our rejoicing; as the foundation of our rejoicing. Depression is the opposite of joy, and we should never allow people, circumstances or things to rob us of our joy. Grace is the very foundation on which the entire believer experience is built.

There is a glory that belongs to God’s grace, and the glory that belongs to God’s grace is to be praised on the bases on what God’s grace has accomplished. Sin is a done deal! God made Jesus to be sin for the entire world. Jesus was judged for those sins and died for them, taking them out of God’s sight forever.

Salvation is freely given to us the moment we believe the gospel of the grace of God, and no works are required or desired. The pride nature of man is such that man will always have that tendency to think more highly of himself then he ought, and everything we say and everything we do is filtered through that sieve of self, it is just our sin nature.

Rather than recognizing the unworthiness of the flesh and the imputed worthiness of the new man, we spend our lives trying to convince ourselves and others of our value. One of the ways we do it is by elevating self through the denigration of someone else. The unseen put down.


That is a major tool in our ego preservation toolbox. Being critical of others is an intricate part of maintaining that fantasy that we are perfect and others are somewhere a bit beneath us. That is why we are immediate in our defense of self, a wiliness to aggressively find fault with others, a way to be superior, to fell safe. 

Monday, July 13, 2015

Our Destiny

If one has yet to believe this powerful message, they are standing only in the righteousness their flesh has been able to produce for them, which means they have missed the mark of the righteousness God requires for heaven. Justification is the judicial act of God whereby he declares the believer righteous.

As the believer stands before God in his courtroom, the evidence is overwhelmingly against them. Yet, as God drops the gavel, he pronounces no penalty. They are seen as Christ is seen. Justification has to do with a judicial decree of the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to their account.

God is perfectly righteous in himself and he never deviates from his own perfectly right standard, nor has he ever changed his righteous character, because his righteous character is part of his glory. To be justified (the gift declaration of the very righteousness of God) means to receive that gift that came to all man.

A person must be justified on the basis of believing in what Christ has already done on their behalf, no one can receive that unless that person is placed into Christ. Being placed into Christ, joined to Christ is the method whereby God justifies the believer; or righteousifies them.

The believer must believe that Christ put their sins (past, present and future) away forever as a result of what his death accomplished, in order to be placed into Christ to have righteousness freely attributed to their account. What a marvelous plan God had for anyone who believes! God has kept the fingerprints of the guilt-worthy off the righteousness he designed for the guilt-worthy.

What an amazing salvation the believer truly has, the issue remaining on the table of God’s justice today is whether man will accept that gift. To receive that gift simply means to take it to one’s self or acknowledge something as being true. In other words, to believe it, to take their stand where God takes his stand, that is faith, that is accepting the truth for themselves.

To believe and receive are one in the same thing when it comes to this gift of salvation. The moment a person believes, they are saints and considered holy, because God himself places them in a position of sainthood. Sainthood is not something they have to attain, it is not something they have to wait for or wait to become.

How can God call the believer holy, when they know in a practical sense, they are unholy nearly every day of their lives. They will never measure up to the perfect righteousness of God, but all who will accept reconciliation on the bases of what Christ’s death and resurrection accomplished, are forever reconciled to God.

God has a purpose for those who believe this powerful message, by placing the believer into his son. Once they have trusted what Christ accomplished where their sins are concerned; they are then placed at that point in time into his son, because Christ’s payment has completely satisfied God’s justice where all their sins are concerned.

God did not predestinate man to believe, he predestinated them to be conformed to the image of his son, because he knew who would believe. God has given everyone the opportunity to be saved, but only he knows for sure who will accept that opportunity. Once saved, the believer is no longer in Adam, at the very point of their belief they are at that instant “In Christ”.

In God’s eyes they are no longer who they once were, they are now a new creation, having been forever joined to their savior. The believer must understand that God has predetermined to glorify them. In fact, God has predestined them to that glorification.

To predestinate simply means to decide and decree in advance the destiny of something. Put simply, before the founding of the world, God predetermined their destiny.

That destiny is glorification through the union with the glorified Christ, whom God raised from among the dead. God has foreknowledge of faith, in other words, those he foreknew (that would believe the gospel), God also determined (at that time when he foreknew) that he would conform those (who believe) to the image of his son, so that Christ would be the firstborn among many brethren. We are indeed living in a special age!

If you want God to view you today, you got to be in his son. How can you get into his son, and have all of his righteousness freely imputed to your account? By simply taking God at his word, concerning what his son accomplished for you. It is as simple as that. When God says he is satisfied with what Christ did for your sins, when Christ died for them, all your sins were all future.

It is a son issue on your part, not a sin issue, in order to receive the gift of salivation. Faith is taking God at his word concerning what his son did on your behalf. Christ did it all, there is nothing left for you to do. God did all the giving; you do only all the receiving.


God knows what his son did on your behalf where all of your sin debt is concerned and he is satisfied that all of that sin has already been judged on his son, leaving no judgment for you where your sin is concerned. Then you can take God at his word, he believes it, why can’t you stand with him on what he believes, that is faith. If you want to know that you have faith, simply take your stand where God takes his. 

Reconciled

When we accept this idea of conditional forgiveness/forgiveness on the installment plan; a little forgiveness here, a little forgiveness there, the need for new forgiveness for new sin, that is the atonement program of Israel, not the reconciliation program of the body of Christ.

We need to understand that forgiveness was all upfront and all-inclusive. It took place when Christ said that it is finished. God knows about it, and he wants us “humankind” to know about it, because they think he is alienated from them, in his mind, when they sin. He put all that sin on his son long before those people were ever born, and now he wants them to accept that reconciliation.

God is not holding or charging that sin to their account. If you want God to view you today, you got to be in his son. How can you get into his son, and have all of his righteousness freely imputed to your account? By simply taking God at his word, concerning what his son accomplished for you.


It is as simple as that. When God says he is satisfied with what Christ did for your sins, when Christ died for them, all your sins were all future. It is a son issue on your part, not a sin issue, in order to receive the gift of salivation.  

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Justification of God

God justifies those who take him at his word concerning what his son accomplished; something for nothing! Being declared righteous is God’s gift to the believing sinner and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the sinner himself doing anything to deserve or merit that righteous standing.

The righteousness God credits to the account of the believer is a righteousness that comes without a cause in the one being declared so. We have to admit, that is difficult for people imbued with the pride of life to imagine. It is difficult to accept because it does not seem fair to the human mind, especially to the religiously minded.

It does not seem quite right that God could consider someone righteous, especially if that person is not expending the same amount of effort or attention that they are to become righteous by way of his or her practice. One can see why some have called this justification of God; cheap justification, one can see where the pride of life comes up with that notion.

If it is that easy, (is the idea) if you can obtain righteousness without doing something, or even trying to do something (or at the very least, promising to do something) in order to gain it-why, that would be too easy and that would make it cheap. It is absolutely free, but it was certainly not cheap, it came at tremendous cost.

What God was doing through his son; God knew about what he intended to do before the world was ever formed, yet, God had kept this secret from ages and generations until it was time for the ascended Jesus Christ to reveal it to the apostle Paul, so that Paul could reveal it to the world.

Understanding this message is Satan’s major goal during this age of grace, Satan knows the force or the power that emotions play when these emotions become the cement that seals the door of the mind such that a mind remains closed and the door locked. It is not that people cannot see the truth, it is more the fact that they do not want to see the truth.

To be open to that which moves a person from the mental comfort zone to which that person has become accustomed becomes not only an unsettling inconvenience, it becomes a mind-shaking threat to many people. It is easier for these people to remain firmly entrenched in a false system of belief than it is to expose the pride-nature to the possibility of having been wrong and especially for the possibility of having been wrong for many, many years.

Human wisdom, human reasoning will go to great lengths to deny the truth of God, that God has already reconciled all man to himself through what his son accomplished where their sins are concerned. To think that God has reconciled all man to himself where their sins are concerned smacks man’s self-righteous pride-nature right in the face.

If the reality of reconciliation must be believed in order for justification or righteousification to become a judicial reality in the mind of God for those who believe that good news message, then we can only expect that Satan’s operation in this age of grace will be to attack the reality of reconciliation with all the religious fervor those who adhere to Satan's false belief systems can muster.

There are those who mistakenly suppose that reconciliation is the same thing as righteousification. These people have jumped to the conclusion that Christ taking the sin issue off the table of God’s justice through his becoming sin for man is that which makes a man as righteous as God; they have mistaken reconciliation for justification.

To have your sin slate judicially emptied because Christ died for those sins does not mean that you now possess the righteousness recorded on the slate of the one who died for those sins. How can you get God to reconcile you to himself where your sins are concerned? The fact is, you cannot.

There is nothing you can do. You do not have to try to get him to do it, you do not have to promise him something in order for him to do it, and you do not even have to ask him to do it because he has already done it.

The instant you take God at his word that his son resolved God’s justice where all your sins are concerned (past, present, and future), God’s power from on high or what is called holy spirit joins you to his son who died for your sins and thereby you become an instantaneous member of the household of God.

Those who believe in a belief system known as Universal Reconciliation are not understanding the difference in reconciliation and justification. Belief is necessary for righteousification and that belief is how you are heaven-worthy.

If you think that the sins Christ paid for are still on the table of God’s justice whether that be your past sins, or your future sins and therefore, in need of further resolution in the judicial mind of Almighty God, you have not understood Paul’s good news that God has reconciled ALL men to himself through the death of his son and therefore he is NO LONGER imputing the sins of the world to the sinners of the world.


To continue to insist that God’s justice has NOT been resolved where ALL the sins Christ died for are concerned is to deny the truth sitting in 2 Corinthians 5:18-21.