Just a Thought "50"

Ephesians 1:6, the word glory here is not an adjective, Paul is not describing grace. The word glory is a noun here, it means 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.

Most people think of sainthood as something reserved for only a select few, but that is not the case. Paul certainly taught separation from the world, but never as the prerequisite to sainthood. Paul taught separation so that a believer might make their experience compatible with the exalted position God had already given them in Christ.

To be positionally in Christ makes a person a saint, because you have the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to your account. The Corinthian believers were not so different than the saints today, but saints none the less, because sainthood is not determined by an external list of rules by what we do or how we live, that is GRACE.

The inevitable result of God’s grace to the believer is true peace, because every believer is without blame before him in love. God sees us in Christ, and Christ was blameless. Sin is not the question anymore, reconciliation is the link that connects Grace and Peace.

We can be absolutely certain that Satan’s main target will be centered right here. If this is the ministry committed to members of the Body of Christ, the Word of Reconciliation, then we can be absolutely certain that Satan wants to confuse the message of reconciliation. He wants to confuse the truth of reconciliation and turn it into a lie.

The dilemma of the human race, just as religion did not save the Israelite during the time of the law contract, religion could not save the Gentiles during that time either, just as it cannot save the Israelite or Gentile today. Religion is an equally inadequate self-defense plea today for people to make, as it was in Paul’s day.

People say, “Well, there are a lot of good people out there.” Yes, from an earthly perspective, certainly they are good, but not when their earthly goodness is measured beside God’s perfect righteousness, it does not cut it.

We might think of them as good and they would be good relatively speaking, good citizens, good neighbors, good people from a relative standpoint, but from God’s standpoint, they do not measure up to who he is.

Paul tells us that he was a Pharisee indeed of the strictest sect of Pharisees when it came to the rules and regulations, ceremonial rites and rituals, but he counted that all dung when it came to winning Christ. No one could ever win Christ by rule-keeping.

No amount of rules and regulations, no observance of rites and rituals, no matter what they are would suffice when it comes to meriting a righteous standing before God. This will be the issue at the Great White Throne Judgment, people will be standing there not clothed in Christ’s righteousness, because they have rejected what Christ accomplished where their sin debt is concerned.

People will be standing there in their own righteousness, and that righteousness is the righteousness Paul said, “I do not want to be found in that, I will not measure up.” Nobody’s righteousness will measure up. God did not make Heaven for good people, he made Heaven for sinners who are justified freely by his grace.

We have a self-sanctification in the positive sense of separating ourselves from those things we know that are not good for us or not good for others, not in order to merit any more righteousness before God through that performance, but in light of all that God has already made us to be in Christ.

Motivation is the key component when it comes to self-sanctification, for what reason do you set yourself apart. Their are people who suppose that their behavior is the source of their right standing with God. They suppose that becoming more righteous in practice, will make them more righteous in God’s sight.

Whether they will admit it or not, these people link practical righteousness with their salvation to some degree. We cannot earn salvation and we can never lose salvation, because salvation is based not upon what we do, or promise to do, but upon what Jesus Christ has already done for us!

To walk after the flesh, is to assign righteous credit to your fleshly conduct, from Adam onward, people have been doing what seems right to a person in regard to having a relationship with God. Not one member of the entire human race has ever lived up to any system of rule-keeping for righteousness.

Yet, how many are attempting today, to do what humankind before us was totally unable to do? How many people think they are measuring up to God’s standard today? Israel supposed they were producing sufficient righteousness through their performance for God to recognize their performance and call them just in his eyes.