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Posts Tagged ‘Christian’

He Must Increase

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , on November 2, 2012| 1 Comment »

As Christians, we are always striving to be more Christ-like. We try to accomplish this in various ways.

Most of us think to be a better Christian we need to go to church more, read the Bible more, pray more, witness more, go on mission trips and a wide variety of other works. We get so busy with things about Christ that we forget the person of Christ. We are so works oriented we burn ourselves out trying to be more like Christ.

The problem with this way of thinking is it just don’t work.

We can’t work our way into a closer fellowship with God, we can’t work our way into being more Christ-like. Basically, we can’t work our way into anything in regard to relationship and fellowship with our Father.

Christ paid the price, Christ did all the work necessary, Christ took our sinful nature and crucified it on the cross. We can’t do anything to earn it or pay for it. It is by grace that we are saved, and it is by grace that we live day by day.

What Christ asks us to do is decrease. What we can do is let Christ live through us and there is no way for Him to do that as long as we are full of ourselves. No amount of work can empty ourselves of our natural way of acting, thinking, living.

As an example of emptying ourselves, if you want a glass of milk but the glass is full of water, the only way to get the milk in is empty the water.  In the same way, if you want to follow Christ as He told us to, the only way is to empty ourselves of our natural way of doing things and let His life increase in us.

The thing that we all overlook while trying so hard to work our way into a close fellowship is that only by truly following Christ, allowing Him to work in us and through us, will anything change. The only way to let Christ do His work through us is to die daily to our natural self, our wants, desires, our way of living and let Christ’s life increase in us.

To me, dying daily means we start each new day asking Christ to live His life through us and daily remind ourselves that because Christ died once for our sins, we are also dead to sin. Christ has defeated the power of sin over us and we need to daily remind ourselves of that fact. Our flesh is always there waiting for a chance to show itself, and we need to daily commit to the fact that the flesh has been defeated. We also daily yield the members of our bodies to God as His instrument and ask for His strength and power to live through us.

We can do nothing on our own, all our works are just as filthy rags in comparison to Him. He is the vine, we are the branches. We can’t live and grow apart from Him.

Stop doing all your works in hope of becoming more Christ-like. Do what He told us to do by dying daily to self and follow Him. Once His life is filling us, the works will happen naturally but they will be done by Him through love, not out of obligation or necessity.

He must increase, we must decrease.

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What Must We Do?

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , on October 3, 2012|

What would you tell someone who asked you what a Christian must do to be pleasing to God?

A lot of people would start out by saying we must go to church, we must tithe, we must obey the 10 commandments. They would probably say we have to witness to others and give our money to the poor, and probably even some in the USA would say we must vote republican.

Seems like we Christians are so hung up on works and doing something in our efforts to be pleasing to God. We must do this, we have to do that. If we aren’t going to church we are backsliding. If we don’t tithe to the church we are robbing God. We have all these things we feel we should be doing to be pleasing to God.

I think a lot of the Christian world today has forgotten that Jesus died on the cross to fulfill the Old Covenant. He said “it is finished”, meaning the old covenant had come to an end because Christ, by living a perfect life, became the absolute perfect lamb for a sacrifice that would once and for all provide forgiveness to humans, who in their own efforts, could not live up to the requirements of the law.

I think the real answer to the question what must a Christian do to be pleasing to God is…..nothing! We don’t have to do anything because God provided Grace through Christ. We have become the righteousness of God because after salvation, God sees Christ in us. It isn’t based on what we have done, it is all on what He has done.

We not longer have to try to keep the 10 commandments. Those were a guide, or tutor, to lead us to Christ. We no longer have to go to church because through Christ, we are the Church. We can assemble together with other believers any day, any where. Christ lives in us and the Holy Spirit is our teacher and guide. We don’t need to look to others for guidance and knowledge. We don’t have to tithe our money because the Old covenant has been fulfilled. We can now give our money out of love and to who and where God is leading us to give. We don’t have to force every encounter with someone to witness to them because the Holy Spirit is the one who draws all men to the Father, and since He lives in us, we can be open to allow Him to work in us how He pleases.

So many Christians today don’t realize the freedom we have in Christ. They don’t understand Grace and the fact that we are no longer under condemnation. We don’t have to do things to be pleasing to God. We now live under the guidance of the Spirit and we do things out of love, not out of obligation and trying to keep rules and commands.

The only commands Christ gave under the New Covenant are listed in 1 John 3:23 where it is written: This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.

So many of us live day to day under condemnation because we haven’t done enough for God. We feel we don’t measure up because we can’t do something someone else does, or we can’t preach like someone else can. The fact is, God made us all the way we are for a reason. In the true Church, the body of Christ, we all are equal and have equally important qualities that God can use. No one is on a higher level than anyone else. We are all brothers and sisters and we are all under one person, Jesus Christ.

Stop feeling like you aren’t pleasing to God because of something you do or something you don’t do. Christ has provided Grace for all of us, and there is nothing we can do to earn it or pay for it.

We can rest in God’s love. We can enjoy daily fellowship with Him because He loves us. We can be assured that we are now in the Kingdom for eternity because of what Christ has done for us. We can stop listening to others who we think are on a higher level than us, or who we think are closer to God. God loves each of His children equally. We are all capable of hearing and learning from the Holy Spirit, who is within us. We don’t have to wait until Sunday to hear from Him, worship Him, serve Him because we are the Church and every day is the Lord’s day.

Stop condemning yourself and look to God, love Him and love others. Let Him teach you, guide you, live through you day by day. There is nothing more you need to do than accept Him, love Him and love others. We are now new creatures in Him. We now live in His Kingdom. Forget the worldly ways and the rules and regulations of religion. Take up your cross daily and follow Him.

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How are You Known?

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , on August 24, 2012| 1 Comment »

We Christians want to be known as followers of Christ. We all go about it in different ways. Most of us feel that if we can preach in public, be a pastor, evangelist, missionary where we can tell others about the Gospel message, we will be known as good Christian people.

Others feel if they can give regularly to their church or programs to help the poor, they will be known as good Christians.

Many will base their identity in Christ on their works and all the good things they can do to show that they are good Christians.

Others will consider how much they can promote how good of a Christian they are, and how much they can condemn those who aren’t Christians.

Basically all these are a waste of time. First, we are saved by Grace, it is a gift from God and there is nothing we can do to earn it or pay for it.

Second, the only way that Jesus says we are to be known as His disciples is by the love we have for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Jesus commandments in the New Testament are ‘believe on the one who God sent’ and ‘love others as you love yourself’ (1 John 3:23). When we try mixing the New Testament commands with the Old Covenant law, we are getting away from the true Gospel of Grace and we are getting away from loving one another as Jesus meant.

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Love Each Other

Posted in Acceptance of Others, christian living, Community, The church, tagged , , , , , , , on June 29, 2012| 1 Comment »

Do you read many Christian forums these days, or Christian blogs and all the comments made on the article?

If you are like me you may find them all very disheartening. In fact, I have about come to the decision to stop reading comments or forums at all.

When I read that in Bible times Christians were known by the love they had for one another, and then read all the arguments, disagreements, disrespectful comments on these sites it just depresses me.

LoveEachOther

I know we are not going to agree on all things. We all have our own interpretations and beliefs, but I thought we should be able to look past all those and still love one another and respect each other.

Here in the USA we have grown up in religious freedom and in a land of plenty and we Christians, me included, sometimes seem more like a bunch of spoiled brats.

I love the freedoms we have here and I love the freedom of religion, but sometimes I think the only way we are going to have close fellowship with God and true love for our brothers and sisters in Christ is when this country is under some non-Christian dictatorship. When we can not get a Bible, can not go to church, when we are afraid of being put in jail for our beliefs or worse yet being put to death because we proclaim Christ, it is then that we will forget all our differences in interpretation and doctrine and will come to have real love for other Christians.

I do not want to see it come to that. I wish that all of us Christians, no matter what denomination, what doctrine we hold to, whether we are a part of the institutional church or if we do not attend a church at all we can come together because of our love for the Father and love for one another.

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Love One Another

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , on June 14, 2012|

Whether you are part of an organized religious organization, or what we today call church, or if you are not part of one, we as followers of Christ are the Church.

We should be able to get past our differences in doctrine and interpretation, get past what church we attend or if we attend at all, and focus on our love for God and our love for one another.

We obviously aren’t going to come in contact with every person in the world, but we are to be ready each day to allow the Spirit of Christ, which is within us, to reach out to those individuals we come in contact with each day.

All our organized services and plans to get people in to a service so the pastor can get the good word out will never make a huge difference. It is our job to go out into the world and live a life of love. Again, that doesn’t mean all of us has to become a missionary and go to some far off land. The people we come in contact with each day during our regular routine are the people we need to be showing love.

This is the way we will make a difference in our world, when non-believers see the love Christians have for each other and for God.

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Living in Grace

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , on May 11, 2012| 2 Comments »

There seems to be some confusion among Christians in regard to grace living and law living. I usually don’t write this long of an article, but felt the added scriptures were necessary to show that living by the law is no longer necessary, thanks to the grace Jesus provided.

I think the mistake a lot of  Christians make is that we don’t truly accept the whole idea of grace. Grace is a free gift given to us by God. When Jesus died, he took all our sins upon Himself and destroyed them, covering them with His blood. We were totally unable to fulfill the law and live a perfect life, so He lived a perfect life for us and then took our sinful nature upon Himself and provided salvation for all who would accept Him (Galatians 2:16, 19-21  nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified… For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly”).

He then put His perfect, righteous nature in us and made us sons and daughters of God. Nothing we did, and nothing we can do can add to it, or pay for it. It is a totally free gift provided by Christ. It is hard for us to accept this without feeling the need to do something to justify God’s love for us. We think that if we do this or that and don’t do this sin or that sin, then we are worthy to come to God. This is performance based living and not grace. Grace is a gift. Grace is God seeing us as perfect and righteous, not of our own doing, but the free gift provided by Jesus’ blood.

Jesus lived by the 10 commandments, but here is the important part, we need to remember that Jesus lived under the Old Covenant Law (Galatians 4:4,5 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons). Jesus had to live by and obey all the commandments, ceremonial rules and laws so He could fulfill the old covenant. Jesus said on the cross, ‘it is finished’, meaning He had lived under the Old Covenant, lived a perfect life and fulfilled the law, thereby making Him the perfect sacrificial Lamb that would take away the sins of the world.

Not until the time of His death and resurrection was the Law fulfilled and a New Agreement took effect. The new covenant did not start until this time. This new agreement is one in which we live by grace, and not by trying to fulfill the Law, which we never could do in the first place. That is why Jesus came to earth, because we could not live a perfect life and keep all the commands and laws of the Old Agreement. So since the old covenant has been fulfilled and we live by grace, why do so many of us still feel a need to try to live by old testament rules and regulations, since we never could do it anyway? Why do we seem to want to put ourselves back under slavery to an old testament set of rules when Christ has already fulfilled them and done away with that need (Galatians 5:1-4 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision (a part of the law), Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace). When we accepted Christ as our sacrifice, we in a sense died also. And since we died, we can now live free from the law (Romans 7:1-8 “Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “you shall not covet.” But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead”).

Before grace, we could not live up to the law because we are an imperfect people. Now that Jesus has become our perfect sacrifice and fulfilled what we could not, we are saved by grace and we live a perfect sinless life in God’s eyes because of the gift He gave us. We are sinless in God’s eyes because of Christ, although we still fall from time to time in this life, it is all covered by the blood of Christ, where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. We are no longer required to live up to the Law that we couldn’t live up to in the first place. If we try to fulfill the Law but fall in just one area, we are guilty of all the law and worthy of death.

Now that we live by grace and faith in Jesus, the law, which was our tutor to point out our sin, is no longer needed (Galatians 3:23-26  But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor (the law). For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus). To say we need to live trying to obey the 10 commandments is saying that Jesus blood alone was not enough to cleanse us from our sins.

The Bible goes so far as to say that if we still try to live by obeying the old covenant law we live under a curse (Galatians 3:10-13 For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “the righteous man shall live by faith.” However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “he who practices them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”).

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Mat. 5:43-48). Obviously there is no way we can do this on our own, and God wouldn’t have told us to be perfect without making a way for us to do it. The only way we can be perfect, is through grace. Accepting the free gift of grace through Christ will allow us to live out the new covenant commands of Christ, which are to accept Christ, love God and love others. The law that is mentioned under the new covenant is always to accept Jesus, love God and love others (Galatians 5:14  For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”; (1 John 3:23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us); (1 John 4:21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also); (2 John 1:6  And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love). We are totally incapable of living up to the law and we are no longer required to do so. Christ died and by His grace, He put His righteousness in us and we are perfect and righteous in God’s sight.

God has provided such a fantastic gift of freedom for us, and most of us today just don’t realize all that entails. Because of grace, it is as though we have never sinned and will never sin. Not because of anything we have done, or can do, but because God loves us enough that he sent his Son to take our sins, past present and future, and because of His grace we stand perfect in the eyes of God. Now we need to walk in that freedom and follow the Spirit, loving God, loving others and not worry about the old covenant law, but live a life for God through love (Galatians 5:16-18  But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law).

Thanks be to God, we now live in grace, not trying to live up to rules and laws that we cannot do on our own, being free in Christ and living a life of love for God and for all we come in contact. We no longer do things because we are bad or displeasing to God if we don’t, but now we do them because we love God and want to do what pleases Him.

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People of Faith

Posted in christian living, tagged , , on March 27, 2012|

When I think of people of faith, my thoughts go to those of us who are Christians and faith in God.

Thinking more about this, I have come to the conclusion that every person in the world is a person of faith.

This isn’t some wild, new age, ‘everyone will make it to Heaven’ idea. I am talking about how we all use our faith day to day. Humans are born having an inner desire that only God can fill. Not all of us come to that conclusion, but we all have a spiritual need and we all use faith constantly.

Faith is listed in the dictionary as confidence or trust in a person or thing; belief that is not based on proof. We all turn on a light switch with faith that the light will come on. We all sit on a chair with faith that it will hold us. Some people have faith there is no God, no Heaven, no Hell. Others have faith in Buddha, or Confucius, or in fate. Others have faith in God and an eternity with Him.

Having faith is a natural thing that God created within each of us. God also created us with a freedom to make our own choices and decisions. Unfortunately, a lot of people make the wrong choice in regard to their faith.

Obviously, we as Christians want to let others know that the only meaningful faith is in God. We need to remember that God does not push himself on others, but gently and quietly works through the Holy Spirit to lead others to Him. We also should not be pushy, forcing our thoughts and beliefs on others. We know there is a natural spot for God built within us, and faith is within each of us. We need to pray for those who have not come to that knowledge, and allow God to work through us in a kind and gentle way.

We as Christians should be ready to let God work through us and speak through us at the right times, and to be witnesses to the faith that brings about salvation through Christ.

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The Word of God

Posted in Word of God, tagged , , , , on March 7, 2012| 1 Comment »

When we talk about the Word of God, we usually think of the Bible.

If we say the Bible is just a book, we get all offended and ready to voice our opinion that the Bible is the Word of God.

Actually, I disagree with that thought. Based on John 1:1, the Word of God is Jesus. He is the true, living Word of God.

To many times we Christians focus so much on The Bible that we forget we have the living Word of God inside of us. The Holy Spirit, who is God in spirit form, just as Jesus was God in human form, lives within us.

There is certainly nothing wrong with reading the Bible, as it is God inspired. Through it we can learn from the past, we see the story of redemption throughout, we come to know the love God has for us and how he purchased our salvation through Christ. We learn what pleases God and we come to know that it is only by Grace that we are in right standing with God.

The Bible teaches us the Law and how we humans are completely unable to live a life pleasing to God through the law. The law was our tutor to bring us to realize that we need God’s grace through Christ.

The Bible teaches us of the freedom we now have in Christ and that only by His grace can we live a life pleasing to Him. There is nothing that we can do on our own to earn or deserve what He has done for us.

The part we need to get over is how we like to fight and argue over which version of the Bible is the ‘true’ word of God. We need to remember that all versions of the Bible are only versions, man-made interpretations of the original words God gave through the Holy Spirit.

We need to focus on Jesus. Only Jesus is the true and living Word of God. When we focus on Christ and listen for the voice and leading of the Holy Spirit of Christ within us, we will then hear and come to understand the true Word of God.

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Living in Grace

Posted in christian living, tagged , , on February 15, 2012|

There seems to be some confusion among Christians in regard to grace living and law living. I usually don’t write this long of an article, but felt the added scriptures were necessary to show that living by the law is no longer necessary, thanks to the grace Jesus provided.

I think the mistake a lot of  Christians make is that we don’t truly accept the whole idea of grace. Grace is a free gift given to us by God. When Jesus died, he took all our sins upon Himself and destroyed them, covering them with His blood. We were totally unable to fulfill the law and live a perfect life, so He lived a perfect life for us and then took our sinful nature upon Himself and provided salvation for all who would accept Him (Galatians 2:16, 19-21  nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified… For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly”).

He then put His perfect, righteous nature in us and made us sons and daughters of God. Nothing we did, and nothing we can do can add to it, or pay for it. It is a totally free gift provided by Christ. It is hard for us to accept this without feeling the need to do something to justify God’s love for us. If think that if we do this or that and don’t do this sin or that sin, then we are worthy to come to God. This is performance based living and not grace. Grace is a gift. Grace is God seeing us as perfect and righteous, not of our own doing, but the free gift provided by Jesus’ blood.

Jesus lived by the 10 commandments, but here is the important part, we need to remember that Jesus lived under the Old Covenant Law (Galatians 4:4,5 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons). Jesus had to live by and obey all the commandments, ceremonial rules and laws so He could fulfill the old covenant. Jesus said on the cross, ‘it is finished’, meaning He had lived under the Old Covenant and lived a perfect life and fulfilling the law, thereby making Him the perfect sacrificial Lamb that would take away the sins of the world.

Not until the time of His death and resurrection was the Law fulfilled and a New Agreement took effect. The new covenant did not start until this time. This new agreement is one in which we live by grace, and not by trying to fulfill the Law, which we never could do in the first place. That is why Jesus came to earth, because we could not live a perfect life and keep all the commands and laws of the Old Agreement. So since the old covenant has been fulfilled and we live by grace, why do so many of us still feel a need to try to live by old testament rules and regulations, since we never could do it anyway? Why do we seem to want to put ourselves back under slavery to an old testament set of rules when Christ has fulfilled them and done away with that need (Galatians 5:1-4 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision (a part of the law), Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace). When we accepted Christ as our sacrifice, we in a sense died also. And since we died, we can now live free from the law (Romans 7:1-8 “Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “you shall not covet.” But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead”).

Before grace, we could not live by the law because we are an imperfect people. Now that Jesus has become our perfect sacrifice and fulfilled what we could not, we are saved by grace and we live a perfect sinless life in God’s eyes because of the gift He gave us. We are sinless in God’s eyes because of Christ, although we still fall from time to time in this life, it is all covered by the blood of Christ, where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. We are no longer required to live up to the Law that we couldn’t live up to in the first place. If we try to fulfill the Law but fall in just one area, we are guilty of all the law and worthy of death.

Now that we live by grace and faith in Jesus, the law, which was our tutor to point out our sin, is no longer needed (Galatians 3:23-26  But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor (the law). For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus). To say we need to live trying to obey the 10 commandments is saying that Jesus blood alone was not enough to cleanse us from our sins.

The Bible goes so far as to say that if we still try to live by obeying the old covenant law we live under a curse (Galatians 3:10-13For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “the righteous man shall live by faith.” However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “he who practices them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”).

We are told in Matthew to ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’ (Mat.5:43-48). Obviously there is no way we can do this on our own, but God wouldn’t have told us to be perfect if it weren’t possible to do so. Since we couldn’t do it on our own, He made a way for us. The only way we can be perfect, is through grace. Accepting the free gift of grace through Christ will allow us to live out the new covenant commands of Christ, which are to accept Christ, love God and love others. The law that is mentioned under the new covenant is always to accept Jesus, love God and love others (Galatians 5:14  For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”; (1 John 3:23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us); (1 John 4:21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also); (2 John 1:6  And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love). We are totally incapable of living up to the law and we are no longer required to do so. Christ died and by His grace, He put His righteousness in us and we are perfect and righteous in God’s sight.

God has provided such a fantastic gift of freedom for us, and most of us today just don’t realize all that entails. Because of grace, it is as though we have never sinned and will never sin. Not because of anything we have done, or can do, but because God loves us enough that he sent his Son to take our sins, past present and future, and because of His grace we stand perfect in the eyes of God. Now we need to walk in that freedom and follow the Spirit, loving God, loving others and not worry about the old covenant law, but live a life for God through love (Galatians 5:16-18  But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law).

Thanks be to God, we now live in grace, not trying to live up to rules and laws that we cannot do on our own, being free in Christ and living a life of love for God and for all we come in contact. We no longer do things because we are bad if we don’t, or displeasing to God, but we do them now because we love God and want to do what pleases Him.

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Be Careful How You Act

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 21, 2011|

Have you ever come across someone who calls themself a Christian, yet the way they act says something different?

I remember an experience my wife had recently. She returned a couple books to what used to be a library. She did not realize the library had closed and a church was now there. A few days later she realized that the library was no longer at this site and went back to the church to get the books.

She said she will never forget the look and condescending attitude of the guy she talked to…who turned out to be the pastor.

My wife assumed that this pastor didn’t agree with women wearing makeup or knee-length dresses. Now I know there are groups that don’t believe in women wearing make-up, and I feel that is up to them how they interpret the Bible and what they feel is right and wrong, but my wife does not in any way over do her make-up, so I did not see any reason why anyone would even think to question the way she looked. Obviously this guy had a different thought on this. He was not nice to her, it was obvious that he didn’t want to talk to her and felt she shouldn’t be in his so-called ‘house of God’. What rubbish.

This whole incident made me think of Jesus when he was with some of the religious leaders of His day and made the statement, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness”.

First off, that building wasn’t the house of God. People tend to forget God doesn’t live in buildings. He lives in people who are saved by grace.

Second, what kind of witness was that to her. This guy did not know if she was a Christian or not. The way he treated her could have been the final straw for her wanting to know God.

We Christians need to stop and think about how we act in the world. We are God’s witnesses to the world. We may be the only witness they see, and if we aren’t living under the guidance of the Spirit of God, we can make a very negative impact of those we come in contact each day.

We need to be careful not to have a religious spirit. Let God’s love for others flow through you. Remember God told us to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Don’t be a stumbling block to someone by the way you act and treat others.

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