“But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
We need to set something straight in the beginning about the meaning of this text. Paul did not write: “But my God shall supply all your wants…” The Bible nowhere promises that God will give us all that we want. In Psalm 23:1, David wrote: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” This verse was misquoted by a young boy when he said: “The Lord is my shepherd, He’s all I want.” It was misquoted but I think that it was really understood by the boy. I think that it means, among other things, that God simplifies our wants. I know that He has simplified mine, and I know some fine Christians who know about this as well. We have a God who can supply our needs out of His great “riches in glory.” This is not written to make us selfish, but to make us humbly accept our dependence on God/Jesus to meet our greatest needs. We think that our greatest needs are physical, but they are not. I am not intimating that God does not meet physical needs, but that these are not all of the greatest needs that He meets. Let’s look at some of the needs that we have that come from God’s great “riches in glory.” One need that only Jesus can meet in our lives out of “God’s riches in glory” is spiritual. You have read this quote from me before, and you are about to read it again, because it tells a great truth: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in every person that only God can fill.” (This is loosely quoted from Martin Buber.) A person’s life is not complete until he or she has his or her spiritual needs met by Jesus Christ. This need is so great in human beings that they will attempt to fill that vacuum with all kinds of things that will not fill it. Drugs can’t fill that vacuum. Romanic love cannot fill that vacuum. I am certainly not against romantic love, but it can’t meet our innermost spiritual needs. A good job with good pay cannot meet that need. This is why Jesus told the rich young man who asked how he could have eternal life to sell all that he had, give it to the poor, and follow Him. He knew that the young man was trying to fill his God-shaped vacuum with his possessions. He couldn’t do it. Jesus knew that his greatest need was spiritual and that all of his physical possessions could not fill that need. Another need that only Jesus can meet in our lives out of “God’s riches in glory” is emotional. Our lives are filled with all sorts of emotional needs. Our emotional needs usually reflect our need for acceptance and love. One of the worst things that can happen to us in life is to feel that others have rejected us, or that we are not acceptable to other people. Jesus can fill that vacuum for us. It is Jesus who makes us aware that we can be acceptable to God. My main concern is that there are many people who do not believe that God will forgive them and accept them into His kingdom. Let me tell you that if you have no other friend, God wants to be your friend, and all He asks of you is allow Him into your life. I guess that we will always have emotional needs, but I know that Jesus has helped me emotionally all of these years that I have served Him. After all, it was Jesus who said: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest…” As always, I can’t cover everything on this topic in one post, but I can encourage you to accept the fact for your life that God is interested in your life and wants to meet all of your needs whatever they are. If this was not true, God would not have included it in scripture. You might be an unbeliever. I am simply asking you to throw all caution to the wind, confess your sins and ask Jesus into your life and let Him go to work in your life supplying your needs. You might be a troubled believer. There are many troubled believers out there and you need to reclaim that promise that God has made to “supply all your need according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.” It’s all there for you – go for it. Bro. Joe
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"Psalm 36:5: "Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.”
Messages about God's nature can be very confusing today. If you listen to some preachers, God has given up and encourages us in any old kind of lifestyle. If you listen to others they tell you that God is so mad at you that He literally wants to send you to hell. Of course, both of these are caricatures of the two natures of God portrayed in the Bible. He is a God of wrath. Anyone who reads the Bible knows that. You could talk to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah about whether or not God will show His wrath. Ask the spies that Moses sent out to spy out the “promised land.” Because they refused to go in and take the land, that whole generation (40 years) had to die out before the Jews could go into Canaan. Ask the people who were buying and selling in the temple and had turned it into a house of merchandise instead of a holy place. If you remember, Jesus went into that part of the temple and raised havoc with those people. Ask the self-righteous Pharisees, who certainly felt the wrath of Jesus when He literally called them a bunch of snakes. He even refers to Himself as a "jealous God." What He meant by that was not that He was insecure in His relationship with His people, but that He longs for them to live the kind of lives that He would have them live. I think this basically means that our behavior sometimes breaks God’s heart. The Bible teaches us in 1 John 4:8b that "God is love." I hope that you will notice with me that the Bible never says that “God is wrath,” nor does it ever say that “God is jealousy." Thank God that He is the God of mercy (and grace). If He wasn't we would all be in very deep trouble. The greatest example of His mercy, of course, is the coming of Jesus Christ into the world to share His mercy on the cross. Jesus is God's personal statement of His mercy - "mercy in the flesh." Without the mercy of God, we would have to live daily with His wrath. What I know about His wrath from the Bible, I prefer mercy. I do not have space in this post to share all of the references to God’s mercy in the Bible, but I will share two. In Psalm 23:6, in the great “Shepherd's Psalm" David declared that God’s “goodness and mercy would follow him all the days of his life.” Psalm 119:4 informs us that: “The earth, O Lord, is full of thy mercy: teach me thy statutes.” The second aspect of His love is Fathfulness. Throughout the Bible, God proves himself faithful to us. John 1:9 states that "If we confess our sins, He (Jesus) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." This means that if we sin and come to God in true repentance, He will practice mercy and be faithful to forgive us. Being faithful means that when we come to Him in true confession, the Lord will always forgive us. This is one of the greatest promises of the Bible. God is always faithful to His people. For example, we read in Psalm 37:8: “For the Lord loveth judgment, and forsaketh not His saints; they are preserved forever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.” Paul gave us an example of God’s faithfulness in Romans 8:31: “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? Let us be grateful that in His great love, God did not leave us with only His wrath, but that He practices mercy and faithfulness in our lives. Thank Him! Bro. Joe “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
I find it strange that people who give very little thought to Jesus in their daily lives lecture those of us who are believers about what Jesus would say or do. I, for one, as a believer do not claim to know everything about Jesus, for no one can, but I do know that I have a personal relationship with Him. In letters to editors, “squawk boxes” in newspapers and in various other places I read what people say about us because we don’t agree with them on certain issues before us today. This got me to thinking about who some people think Jesus is and who the Bible (mainly the New Testament) tells us that He is. There are those who would make Jesus into a libertine who has no moral authority and who makes no moral judgments. According to them, if you follow Jesus anything goes, and if believers make a moral decision based on Jesus, they call us “hypocrites.” It is for certain that Jesus told us not to judge people, because we ourselves are sinners in need of forgiveness, but for heaven’s sake are we to ignore such things as the Ten Commandments, and other moral arguments made by the Bible? I am no one’s judge, and do not want to be anyone’s judge, but I do want to take the moral values of the Bible seriously. Jesus certainly took them seriously. In the New Testament Jesus took on the self-righteous and the unrighteous equally. He excoriated the self-righteous Pharisees and straightened out the life of a tax collector like Zacchaeus. Jesus was a perfect person “who knew no sin,” but He worked among sinners, not to agree with them or to boost them in their lifestyles; rather, He did this to help them live better lives. There are those who would make Jesus into a social reformer. Jesus came to earth to transform people, but He did not come to reform them. Unless you see something in the gospels that I do not see, Jesus did not make political statements. He did not come to take on the corrupt Roman government. It is true that He did not agree with it, but He did not come to reform the Roman Empire but to transform it, which eventually happened. Jesus was not a roving revolutionary, striking out at the political systems of His day. In fact, He was harder on so-called religious leaders like the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians than He was on Roman soldiers. I realize that I am leaving a lot of interpretations of Christ out in this article, but these are two examples that are on my mind at the present time. I think that our text tells us who and what Jesus was and is: “For He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Jesus came to the earth to eventually die for the sins of people – all people. He made it plain in the New Testament that He was, and is, the means of salvation for all who will believe in Him. He is the One about whom John wrote in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” When we claim to be saved, we do not mean to cast aspersions on all other people, for we realize that we are “sinners saved by grace.” What we do want is for other people to see Jesus for whom and what He is, and for what He can do in their lives. I know that when I tell someone about Jesus, I am not looking down on them, but simply concerned that they find the life that God wants them to have in Jesus. The same God, who sent Jesus out of His love for humankind, is the One who put His love in the hearts of believers. We do not mean to demean you, but we want you to find life in Christ, which is “abundant life.” I want to leave this with you: We know that we aren’t perfect, and we know that we can sometimes come across as self-righteous, but we do know that we are forgiven and that Jesus Christ is an integral part of our lives. We want all people to know that forgiveness and that life. Bro. Joe “But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend.”
This article is based on an idea that I read on this subject in David Jeremiah’s devotional book, Discovery. The text written above is the text that he used for his article. Isaiah 41:8 is very important for the Jewish people, and it is exceptionally flattering to Abraham. There are a lot of great people in the Bible, but only Abraham is referred to as God’s friend. The main part of this article is based on the last paragraph of David’s Jeremiah’s article: “Perhaps the greatest honor the scriptures ascribe to Abraham is that he was ‘the friend of God.’ Are you a friend of God? Do you respect Him, love Him, and confide in Him? Abraham’s example is for each of us today.” I will base my comments in this article on three things asked in the paragraph quoted above. If we would be God’s friend, we would respect Him. The Bible tells us that “the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” Respecting God and fearing Him are one and the same. A person who is God’s friend takes God very seriously and does not thumb his or her nose at what He teaches us in His word. How do we show respect for our parents? I think that the first thing that we should do is respect them, and when we respect them we are more prone to obey them. We can’t go through life taking God lightly and expect to experience His great power in our lives. There are people who just can’t figure out why God does not use them in a greater way. I think that they could find their answer if they would consider whether or not they really respect God, and whether or not His word influences the decisions that they make in this life. If Abraham was anything, he was obedient to God. You will remember that He left Ur of the Chaldees and eventually went to Canaan because God told him to do so.. What is the last thing that you did because God told you to, whether you thought it would be beneficial to you or not? A friend of God would obey out of respect for Almighty God. If we would be God’s friend we would love Him. When Jesus was asked which the greatest commandment was, He said: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Matthew 22:37-39) Do we really love God or do we say that we love Him because we know that we are supposed to? That is an important question because the Lord knows our hearts and knows whether or not our love for Him is genuine. Think about it: If we are friends with people, it is because we love them. The same is true of God. The result of loving God will be much the same as respecting Him – we will obey Him. Jesus said: “If you love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) Jesus also said: “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” We can’t say that we love God and go our own way through life. If we would be God’s friend we would confide in Him. Another word for confiding in God is prayer. It is in prayer that we communicate with God. The communication between God and us is reciprocal, i.e. God expects us to listen to Him as well as His listening to us. But to confide also implies that when we have problems and troubles in life, we take them to Him. When we have doubts and fears, we take them to Him. When we are having family problems, we take them to Him. When we are having church problems, we take them to God. Whatever it is that we are facing in life; we need to confide our concerns to God. He already knows them, but He still wants us to ask. Our problem is that we are likely to try to work out everything ourselves and then consult God. It doesn’t work that way. Based on these three things that I have shared in this article, are you God’s friend? If you stood before God today and asked Him: “Am I your friend?” What would His answer be? Bro. Joe “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. 2. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4. When Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then shall ye appear with Him in glory.”
New Testament church preaching was centered in the death and resurrection of Christ. The risen Christ changed everything historically, but He also changed everything personally for you and me. Because Christ is still alive and is “on the right hand of God,” We can be raised with Him. He raises us to newness of life. If you are raised with Christ, the following changes should have taken place in your life. He changed your past. Verse 3a: “for ye are dead…” How can the past be changed? This was illustrated by Leonard Griffith: “Imagine standing before an angel, attempting to explain the record of your life. When you have confessed what you consider your worst sins, you say, ‘I want to be forgiven.’ The angel looks at the pages of the golden book and says, ‘there is nothing here to forgive. We have no record of such sins.’ You reply, ‘But there must be. Did you get the name right?’ The angel replies, ‘That name isn’t here either. There was once such a person, but he died and closed his account. Your record begins after his death.’” Aren’t we glad that God has an eraser? Aren’t we glad that the risen Christ forgives us? In this life we can carry scars from the past, but the Lord has removed the record that caused the scars. He changed your present . Verse 3b: “And your life is hid with Christ in God.” This means that the risen Christ became an integral part of our lives. When we believed, we became one with the Father and the Son. We should make decisions in our lives now, not based on the “old man” but on the “new man.” The risen Christ has made us new people. We are identified with Christ in His death and resurrection. We are different people with new minds and a different way of looking at life. We have a new relationship with God through our faith in Christ; therefore, we now have a new way of living. We know that we are not our own, but we have been “bought with a price,” the price of the body and blood of Jesus. We now look beyond ourselves and “seek those things which are above…” We now, “set our affections on things above, not on things on the earth.” He changed your future.Verse 4: “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we appear with Him in glory.” Because of our trust in the risen Christ, our view of the future should have changed from pessimistic to optimistic. We know that we will inevitably face rough times in the future, but we know that we will not face them alone, for Christ is alive and will be with us every step of the way. To quote an old cliché: “We don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future.” Furthermore, we know that at some time in the future we will die, but we also know that death is not the end. We know that the grave is not our final resting place. We will be with Jesus in glory. The grave will be the depository of our earthly remains, but it will also be the place of our new birth into the presence of Christ. The entrance of the risen Christ into our lives does, indeed, change everything. He changed everything for His first followers and He changes everything for us as well. Rejoice! Take a few minutes and celebrate by praising the risen Christ!!!! Bro. Joe “Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of His understanding. 29. He giveth power to the faint: and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. 30. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. 31. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; and they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:28-31 is probably one of the most familiar texts in the Old Testament. We quote it often when we are in distress. I discovered that it gives us a description of God and the promise of His work in our lives. Only a God as described in this text can do the work in our lives that it promises. First, is the description of God: "Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching His understanding." In fact, in Isaiah 55:8-9 we can see what God says about this: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” The God who works in our lives is "everlasting." This means that God has no beginning or end. He has just always been. He is the creator of everything. He does not faint or get tired and is never weary. Also, He is beyond our understanding - way above our intellect. The amazing thing is that this magnificent God is interested in our lives. Second, is His work in our lives: "He giveth power to the faint (the tired); and to them that have no might He increaseth strength." God, who is never exhausted, is aware of our exhaustion and gives us His power to overcome it. Didn't Jesus say, "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden and I will you rest"? We have His promise to give us rest in Himself. Our bodies may be tired, but the Lord lifts up our spirits and gives us the strength to go on. Any Christian who has gone through serious illness or serious problems of any kind, knows that this is true. Ironically, I don’t think that one can really understand the strength that God can give until he or she has gone through some kind of test. Third, He not only lifts our spirits, He helps us thrive: "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." When I read that this morning, I thought of John 10:10b: "I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly." The Lord's presence in our lives makes life better, even when we are going through hard times. Being human, we will get weary, and we will be what we call "down in the mouth." We don't have to stay that way because we have a wonderful God who is at work in our lives. What particularly fascinated me when I read this today was that the God described in verse 28 is interested in our lives and does what verses 29-31 tell us. He doesn't have to give us new energy and strength, but because of His great love, mercy and grace He does. Let's just praise Him!!!!! Bro. Joe There will be a new post Thursday evening. “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.”
In this text, Matthew gave us a view of the ministry of Jesus in a nutshell. Everywhere He went during His earthly ministry, Jesus taught, preached and healed. This threefold ministry shows us His major concerns for people that are still His concerns today. These three aspects of Jesus’ ministry touch our lives, and enable us to touch the lives of others. Always remember that what we learn in the Bible is not just for our knowledge but for our benefit and for the benefit of those with whom we live and work. The footnote in The Life Application Bible gave me some insight on this that I will share with you: “Teaching shows Jesus’ concern for understanding; preaching shows Jesus’concern for commitment and healing shows His concern for wholeness.” All of these aspects of Jesus’ ministry touch our lives and the lives of others with whom we associate. Jesus taught so that people could come to an understanding of what He was all about. This surely means that Jesus taught such Old Testament passages as Isaiah 53 in which it is said about Jesus that: “Surely He hath borne our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” He wanted people to know who He was, based on Old Testament prophecy. That is why it is so important for us to be involved in a daily study of scripture. We cannot share with others what we do not understand ourselves. Just as Jesus taught people in His earthly ministry, He has given us the Holy Spirit to teach us and to help us understand what Christ and the life that He promises is all about. Of course, that understanding is not given to us as a secret, but is given to us in order for us to tell others. Our understanding of Jesus does enrich our lives beyond measure, but He wants this understanding to enrich the lives of the people around us. Jesus preached because of His concern for commitment. His teaching gives understanding, but His preaching calls upon us to go beyond understanding what Jesus is about to actually letting it make a difference in our lives. For example, when Jesus called Peter and Andrew in Matthew 4:18-19 He called them to commitment: “And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishermen. 19. And He said unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” The essence of the preaching of Jesus was and is that people will commit their lives to doing what He commands according to His purpose for their lives. We need to take this to heart. It is not important that we just understand what Jesus is about, but that we commit our lives to Him and witness and minister to other people. Jesus healed people out of concern for their wholeness. He was not just about healing bodies, but He was concerned that His healing make a difference in the way people lived. Physical healing is certainly possible in Jesus, but physical healing does not make one whole. Wholeness comes when the physical healing results in those who have been touched by His healing hand make a commitment to serve Him. It is certainly appropriate for us to pray for Jesus to heal people. I do it all of the time. But we must pray that in this healing, the people will find wholeness. In other words it is important that their healing would go beyond the physical aspects and make a difference in the way that they live. Jesus wants to touch our lives through what He taught, preached and did. He also wants us to touch other people’s lives with what we have learned and personally know about Him. Let this threefold ministry touch your life today, and let it touch the lives of those about you. Bro. Joe “And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment. 24. And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.”
The apostle John wrote with the authority of an eyewitness, for he was with Jesus from the beginning of His ministry until His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. This is not to imply that what he writes is superior to what others wrote, but when John writes about what Jesus commanded, we know that he heard about it from the Lord himself. What I see in these verses are three entities that can give us assurance that we are on the right track in our Christian lives. The first thing that John mentions is “that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ.” The truth of this is attested to throughout the New Testament. If we do not believe, then we have not taken the first step and certainly have no assurance of His grace and His presence. We have to be careful here, because we can think that all we have to do to have God’s assurance is to believe about Jesus. There are people who seem assured of their salvation, and the presence of God in their lives, simply because they believe about Jesus. To “believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ” is much more than intellectual acceptance of Jesus. It means that Jesus has entered our lives, indwelt us with His Spirit, and is the deciding factor in all of the decisions that we make in our lives. To truly believe in Jesus is to have Him make a difference in how we live. We are commanded to believe in Jesus, not just to make us feel better about ourselves and to feel accepted by God, but to actually dedicate our lives to live for Him, and for Jesus to make a difference in how we live. Notice that in verse 24, John wrote: “And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and he in Him.” The second thing that John mentioned was that we “love one another.” I know that this command can seem like a broken record. I write about this a lot, but I write about it, and the Bible mentions it a lot because it is of utmost importance. This is a direct command of Jesus Christ: “This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus did not suggest that it would be a good thing if we loved one another; rather, He commanded that we love one another. If we believe in Jesus, we are commanded us to love as He did. Think about your relationships with people in your family, in your church, at your workplace, wherever, do you genuinely love these people? Think about your attitude towards people who might differ with you, do you truly love them. The love for others that gives us assurance is a radical love that loves beyond all human expectations. I’m not sure if we ever master this, but we surely need to make it an important part of our lives. The third thing that John mentioned was: “And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given to us.” It is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives that enables us to believe in Jesus and to trust in Him in daily life. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives that enables us to love one another. Before Jesus was crucified, resurrected and ascended to the Father, He promised His disciples, and us, that He would send the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us into all truth, and into living the Christian life. The assurance that we have in Christ is not built on earthly things, but on the Holy Spirit who enables us to live as we should. He will remind us when we are getting out of line; therefore, we need to listen for His still small voice in our daily walk. Do you want the assurance that only God can give? Then believe in Jesus and let Him change your life. Learn to love other people in spite of themselves, and depend on the Holy Spirit to enable you to do all that God would have you do and to be all that God would have you be. Bro. Joe “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove, what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
Paul wrote that when we have “presented (our) bodies a living sacrifice” some changes should take place in our lives. One thing that he wrote was that we should present ourselves holy. Holy does not mean self-righteous; rather, it means living a life that is “acceptable unto God.” Paul also writes that this is not asking too much of us: “which is your reasonable service." In verse 2 he points out how we can present our lives as acceptable to God in a holy manner. Now, you get the idea here that being a Christian is to be different from the world. Sometimes this makes us at odds with the world. There are people who tell us that if we love people, we will accept whatever lifestyle that they live and just “love them.” I just wonder if that goes for child molesters, murderers, adulterers, thieves and etc. He tells us how we can live the acceptable life. Jesus would not tell us to hate anybody, but He would certainly not tell us to agree with them in their lifestyles. He wrote:“And be not conformed to this world.” A.T. Robertson translated this: “Do not be poured into the world’s mold.” Keep in mind that the world system is under the control of Satan, and he is happy when we join the world in its schemes. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2: 9-11: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praise of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. 10. Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which hath not obtained mercy, but now have received mercy. 11. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul…” This is definitely not a call to fit ourselves into Satan’s mold. Further, Peter wrote in 1 Peter 4:3-4: “For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banqueting, and abominable idolatries: 4. Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you…” All of this from Peter’s first letter does not tell us to conform to the world, but to be different. Further, Paul wrote: “But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…” We are not only to refuse to conform to the world’s morality, but we are to be transformed – changed. We should not do those sinful things that we did before Christ came into our lives. This transformation does not turn us into modern day Pharisees; rather it turns us into Christians. This means that we will not turn up our noses at people who are not Christians, but that we will seek to help them, pray for them and love them. The New Testament does not allow us to hate anyone. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus told His disciples, and us, to love people like He did. We seek to influence them for good rather than allowing them to influence us for evil. I think that the world is crying out for people who are genuinely transformed by the Holy Spirit. These would not be people who smile on whatever people want to do, but who eschew evil, but at the same time love people. Being transformed does not mean that we become religious, legalistic, and holier than thou; rather it means that we seek to serve people in the name of Jesus. It means that our own behavior has changed, and that our behavior influences people for good. Like Jesus, we do not encourage people in their sin, for this gives them a false hope. But we demonstrate a lifestyle that brings praise to the Lord. Do not be self-righteous but do not let the world conform you to its mold. Bro. Joe “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
When I turned to this text this evening, it surprised me that I have written as many blogs as I have over the last year and a half, and have not written anything on it. At least I don’t remember that I have. In the title I asked the question: “Have You Been Crucified?” Of course you knew that I do not mean to ask if you have been literally crucified, for that has already done by Jesus and no one else will ever have to do it. Jesus died for us “once for all” and for all the ages. What did Paul mean when he wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ”? I think that he meant that when he accepted Christ on the Damascus Road, the old mean-spirited Paul died and a new Paul emerged. Paul wrote about this in 2 Corinthians 5:17 in different words: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (creation): old things are passed away; behold all things have become new.” One of the first things that we learn when Jesus comes into our lives is that He changes us from within, and the old things that we loved so much have been replaced by better things. This is amply illustrated in the life of Paul. Before Paul’s encounter with Christ, he was mean-spirited, narrow minded and filled with hatred. But after his encounter with Christ, Paul was a loving person. He became so loving that he wrote the definitive text on love in 1 Corinthians 13. He was, indeed, crucified with Christ. Everyone does not have the instant radical change that Paul had when they are converted, but there are definitely changes in their lives. Think about the changes that Christ has made in your life and you will see what I mean. Please do not understand me to be telling you that you should have become a super-righteous person when you were saved, but that there are changes and that you are growing in grace. In 1 Corinthians 13:11 Paul wrote about how his life had changed when he accepted Christ: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Paul was not referring to growing up in age, but to growing in Christ. When Christ entered Paul’s life he put away the childish desire to destroy people with whom he disagreed, and to actually love people. I don’t think that we are really grown up in age or in Christ until we learn to love people instead of envying or hating them. Crucifixion in Christ will bring a new and lasting maturity into our lives. We need to pray that Christ will help us mature in Christian love. We probably all have some maturing to do in this matter, but we do need to think seriously about it. In Ephesians 4:22-25 Paul wrote about what this change would mean in our lives: “That ye put off concerning the former conduct of the old man, which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts; 23. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind. 24. And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. 25. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members of one another.” The terms “put off” and “put on” could be used in the sense of taking off old clothes and putting on new clothes. This means that we should make conscious changes in our lives. What I mean is that Christ changes us, but we need to give thought and action to the changes that he makes in our lives. We need to make it a practice in our lives, no matter how long we have been Christians, to make conscious changes for the better. We can do this under the conviction and leadership of the Holy Spirit. I hope that you can truly say: “I have been crucified with Christ,” and that you have become a new person in Him, putting off and putting on those things that will make you a better Christian, a better witness and a better human being. Bro. Joe |
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