Know who you are from fleshly perspective? God has kept the fingerprints of the guilt worthy, off of the righteousness he designed for the guilt worthy. Know who God counts you to be once you have trusted what Christ accomplished where your sins are concerned?
When self-righteous moralizers harden their hearts and remain impenitent concerning their goodness, they are storing up to themselves wrath to be visited upon them in the day of wrath. They will one day stand at the Great White Throne Judgment where the merited righteousness they think they have will be put on display.
Will you accept that God’s son paid for your sins, and that Christ’s payment has completely satisfied God’s justice where all of those sins are concerned, or will you continue to hold on to the notion that you have insufficient sins to warrant Christ’s death in the first place.
Or equally as dangerous, the religious notion that Christ’s shed blood was insufficient to have fully satisfied God where your sins are concerned, thus the continual need for something further required of you to keep God’s justice up to date.
The only reason God could say through Paul, “Grace and Peace be unto you” is because his son fully paid the price. Faith does not come in gallons and tons, faith is not something “do I have enough faith, have I believed firmly enough?” Faith is simply taking your stand where God takes his stand.
There are many who will spend an eternity apart from Christ, because they refuse to accept what Christ accomplished on their behalf. The choice is theirs, God’s given people the choice to reject or just to stand where God does. If you want to know that you have faith, just simply take your stand where God takes his.
Do you awake every morning of your life with the security you have in Christ, in your identity in him, having believed Paul’s good news? You see why Paul could say “We are complete in HIM,” everything that belongs to Christ now belongs to you.
Do you awake every morning contemplating God’s presence inside you through his energizing power from on high, and that inter-strength empowerment that God will give you, it should never be about the degree of difficulty for any grace age believer, it should always be about the extent of the supply.
What a supply we have, but very few stop to ponder, stop worrying long enough to ponder that supply, much less do we ponder it on a daily bases in our lives, so it becomes a state of mind. A labor of love, because Christian living is not about doing, it is about believing something, and when we believe something and we continue to take in God’s Word, it should change who we are, not change what we are trying to do and trying to become.
The Christian life, it is trying to understand something and then work with that understanding. Romans 6:14 - Paul is not telling us that we will no longer be inclined to do wrong things or to think wrong things, or even that believers will more often than not always choose to do the right thing. Sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are not living under the law program, you are living under grace.
You do not have to know all the theological terms involved, this is not difficult. This is simply saying, God said what his son did for you was sufficient to absolve you of your sin debt! Past, present, future, it is gone, Christ did it all, there is nothing left for you to do, God did all the giving, you do only all the receiving.
Galatians 6:7 - Believers need not ever fear separation from God, our everlasting life with him is an absolute certainty. Physical death will not halt it, or hinder it in any way. The second death is never a threat or a possibility. Paul simply refused to allow things which were not expedient or wise to take control of him, he had the clear option to choose otherwise.
Believers need not ever fear a change in attitude from God toward us. The improper choices we make do not change the direction of God’s mind toward those who have been joined to his son, because he sees those believers IN his son. Never make the mistake when it comes to improper choices, that you can continue to make improper choices and face no consequences.
We all too often plant one crop and then before we know it, the crop we have planted is growing up all around us to the extent that what we have planted can begin to get a strangle-hold on us. It happens to those who are believers and it happens to those who are unbelievers, if something comes up, it is because we have planted an improper choice somewhere, in many cases.
Your relationship with God is not contingent upon the crops you plant and the choices you make. How much more secure could you be than to be joined to God’s son, that’s reigning in life, whether you realize it or appreciate it. Reigning in life means much more than the ability to make correct choices in our lives.
As important as it is that we make correct choices, reigning in life over sin means much, much, more than making proper choices. Paul was reigning in life from a practical perspective, because those who receive the gift of God, do in fact, reign in life. But, that does not mean that improper choices have no earthly consequences, they certainly do. While they will not affect your salvation, they can indeed wreak havoc in your life.
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