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.