We need to be justified, because our own performance and our own production, even when accompanied by our most sincere promises and pledges to God is insufficient to accomplish for us a just standing in the eyes of a perfectly just God. We do not seek after God, God seeks after us and he does so through is Word. He seeks after us through people who are proclaiming his Word.
None of us, even after we have accepted the gift of salvation have a full understanding of the things of God. Let no one convince you otherwise, in fact, we are told to study in order to gain understanding, but the truth is, none of us have arrived.
The human race has become quite adept at mixing poison with their speech. The words come out designed to appeal innocuous, but lo and behold, there is something hidden under the lips of sinful people. While their words may appear harmless and unoffending, oftentimes these words are not benign words at all.
They are insidiously designed by the speaker to be laced with character venom, so as to contaminate the object of the speech. What does scripture say about a corpse that has been in the grave longer than three days? It stinks. Everywhere people go, you can see the results of their having been there, the footprint of sin is easily traced to the sinner.
Knowing you are complete in Christ, how would love operate? God’s will for you is to be mature not only in the knowledge of his Word, but in the application of that knowledge through the avenue of love. Knowledge finds expression through our behavior. To serve Christ today, you must serve the earthly manifestation of Christ’s Body.
Knowing you have perfect righteousness in the son, how should you operate positively on behalf of others? Knowledge and love application of that knowledge is the idea behind growth, one without the other is entirely useless. Separation from the world means, growth requires something where the believer and the world is concerned.
A coin accomplishes nothing till it is spent, practical holiness is the hallmark of maturity; maturity demands it, you can not be mature apart from it. Practical holiness is that which will get you rewarded at The Bema Seat of Christ. Love will never show up empty handed where Bema Seat rewards are concerned, love always edifies and unifies.
To worship at the altar of the flesh, is to allow experience to trump truth, and to allow experience to trump truth, is to allow emotion to trump truth, and when experience becomes king in a person’s life, experience is determining that person’s doctrine, rather than that person’s doctrine determining the validity of their experience.
The dispensing of the grace of God. You see, God does not bring armies of insects on people today, he is not sending calamity of any kind on people today, whether it be by climate disaster, financial upheaval, or whatever else might be attributed to God’s hand of judgment on a Christ rejecting world. Why?
God is NOT imputing people’s sins unto them today, because he imputed them to somebody else. Why all the turmoil and distressful circumstances in the world today? It is the age of sin, it is sin in the world, and sin playing itself out; the natural consequence of the sin of the world.
The apostle of the age of grace, delivers to us the truth that God is not bringing special judgments on the world today. The things that are occurring in our world today come as a natural result of the sin-cursed world in which we live, not from special judgments.
God is not trying to get even with people today because of their sins, and he is not calling down some special bad thing; some adverse situation, in order to teach certain individuals a lesson. God does not teach through special judgments during the Age of Grace, he teaches us through his written Word today.
Paul says, “It stablished us.” It stabilizes believers today, it is the Word that does the stabilizing work of God, so that we are able with the Word, hold up under what is happening today. God has given you what you need to endure whatever you face in this life, whether it be best circumstances or worse circumstances from our perspective. We take it in, it sustains us and builds us up, it fortifies us.
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