Just a Thought "36"

The direction within the Word of God enlightens us as we take it in, it is not for people in order to get them saved, or for keeping them saved, or to keep fellowship, it is for people who are already saved and sealed saints, the direction is in the written Word of God, it’s the Word of God that gives us or sheds that light on us.

Light in the sense of understanding, so that people might gain that understanding of who God is, and his plan for us, and who we are, and the relationships we should have between one another. Direction within the Word of God was addressing those words not just to pastors in the pulpits, but to the people in the pews, because God’s direction was addressed to the saints, not to the pastors.

What is religion all about, it is called, walking after the flesh. When Paul talks about walking after the flesh, he’s not talking about continuing a sinful lifestyle, as most suppose that he has in mind, to walk after the flesh, is to attribute to the flesh the ability through performance to earn a righteous, or more righteous standing before God.

All who think that their performance can gain them heaven are proving their lack of understanding, when it comes to Paul’s use of the term “flesh”, rather they sit in an assembly where sin is being continually hammered in some manner, to keep people on the right track. To walk after the flesh is to suppose that righteousness comes from or sourced from what we do, or what we refuse not to do, what we commit or promise not to do again. 

Faith, we learn the necessity of a total abandonment of any notion, that any person can merit righteousness before God through the performance of the flesh, and that we must place our trust solely in the fact that God accomplished our salvation for us through his son’s death, when he judged his son for our sins.

When ungodly people are willing to simply take God at his Word, abandoning any notion that they can merit a righteous standing with God through their performance, and trust solely in what Christ accomplished for them, having resolved that issue of their sins, God’s power from on high performs a miracle in those people’s lives by uniting those believers with Christ himself.

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. Paul is just bringing this to our attention, and he is not taking us to judgment and chastisement, he is taking us to position and obligation, “Owe no man anything, but to love one another.”

My service to God, is no greater than my service to you. Jesus Christ’s faith in the Father’s will, and Christ was faithful to do the Father’s will, so it was ultimately Christ’s faith that allowed God’s justice to remain intact, as God declares an unrighteous believer to be righteous, apart from Christ’s faith and his faithfulness to carry out the Father’s will based on that faith, there would not be anyone perfectly righteous, to whom God could join a believing sinner.

Just as Christ never doubted the will of the Father, the Father never doubted the faith and faithfulness of his son, it was God’s plan to use the faith and its resultant faithfulness of the son of God, in the ultimate glorification of human-kind, the union of believers to Christ, is that which allows God to remain just, when he credits those with righteousness with that which belongs to the one who is absolutely, perfectly righteous.

When Paul talks about a new creature, old things being past away, all things become new, he is not talking about sin in an individuals life, he is talking about all that we were prior to salvation, in Adam. Once saved, we are no longer in Adam, we are at the initial point of our belief, in Jesus Christ.

In God’s eyes we are no longer who we once were, we are now the new creation, being forever joined to our savior. Paul is not talking about a believer gaining sinful perfection at the point of their belief, or at any other time for that manner, a person who believes that sin in others proves a lack of salvation, is a person who is over looking the sin in themselves, that individual is thinking more highly of themselves, than they ought.

Paul did not say eliminate our sin nature all together, instead, Paul said mortify it, render it functionally inoperative, do not allow it to reach it’s final culmination, which is separation and division, while it will always be present with us, we do not have to allow it to rule and reign in our life, or to fracture others who happen across our path.

Why we need to believe, why it is we believe, what happens when we believe, it’s faith presented in the Book of Romans, it’s not how we become more righteous practically, that is something different, it’s how God declares us to be righteous judicially as a gift and how God’s able to do that.

All our sins were future, when Jesus Christ died for them, so God had to know about them, and they all went on his son, never to be judged again. When we place our trust in what Christ accomplished where our sins are concerned, we are joined to the Savior himself, the baptism by God’s power from on high into Christ, immersed not into water, but immersed into Jesus Christ, and it’s in that sense and it’s through that method that God can declare unrighteous believers to be as righteous as God himself, what belongs to the son, belongs to us, we are joint-heirs with Christ.

When we look back to Israel’s program, we will see the prayer of faith. James in his Epistle, he leaves no doubt about the power of prayer in Israel’s program, they walked by sight, and God allowed their prayer life to work in connection with sight, when that earthly kingdom is on their doorstep again. 

We do not need to be too discouraged, as we watch the times unfold and the worries come, they just bring us ever closer to what we would call, our blessed hope. The one-world government architects of our day are steering us ever closer, and at an ever more rapid pace toward that time, when the entire world will need an answer man.

Rest assured, an answer man will arrive on the scene, once God has called his ambassadors of the age of grace home, yet, as the world will learn when that answer man comes along, he will not really have the answers at all, he will be the false fixer.

Satan’s goal is to counterfeit Christ’s reign on earth with his own reign, but when Christ is reigning on the throne, there will be a one world government system in place, and Christ will be the supreme archon of that governmental system. Satan, in his attempt to be like the most high God, also, wants a world-wide governmental system, but without Christ.

The Gospel of the Kingdom was about the nearness, the proximity of the kingdom of God on earth. The Gospel of God was about the identity of the earthly king, the Gospel of God had application to both programs of God, the program of God with Israel, the earthly program, and the program with us in an age of grace for the heavenly realm.

The 12 apostles were teaching the identity of Jesus as the messiah after God raised him from among the dead, Paul also teaches the identity of Jesus Christ (Christ means messiah), he did teach the Gospel of God, but the issue in eternity in Heaven will be to which man are we related, do we have our identity in the first Adam, or do we have our identity in the second Adam, Jesus Christ.

We have to believe that Christ died, and not just died for our sins, but what was accomplished when he died for our sins, what was accomplished where those sins were concerned.