1 John 3:19-24 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
If we lose contact with the God of love because of our hearts condemning us, we need to go back and search the scriptures. Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to deliver the world from its condition of unrighteousness. Christ came as God’s messenger of love. He came to all, not only to those who do good things, but to the whole world, even his enemies. The angel that revealed himself to the shepherds on the night Jesus was born said, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause GREAT JOY FOR ALL PEOPLE. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:9-12) This message of the glory of God coming to earth in the form of a baby excited the shepherds so much that they ventured to Bethlehem to view the child. They who lived every night under a canopy of billions of stars and galaxies believed they saw God’s grace and mercy in the form of a baby in Bethlehem. This baby Jesus as a mature man would call himself the Son of Man or God in the flesh. He identified totally with those in the flesh, but as the Son of God He was always present with his Father. All those He associated with possessed the Adamic nature. Even if they were loving and kind, they were still away from God’s acceptance, walking under their own authority. Jesus lived as flesh, but served God in his spirit. The angel that night announced GOOD NEWS to all people: a Savior had been born who would deliver men out of their place of unrighteousness before God. Later in the New Testament, we see the disciples moving from one community to the next, proclaiming the Good News that the angel expressed to the shepherds: God had come down to men to bring salvation through the life of this baby, Jesus Christ. His life and death would fulfill the plan of God, bringing humans into his eternal household; adopted as children of God, originally birthed in finite flesh, but later because of faith in Jesus Christ, birthed in the Spirit to eternal life. God formed this plan in his heart before the foundation of the world. A fallen creation would find eternal life through the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross. No longer hopelessly lost, cast from God’s eternal home because of rebellion to his authority, the works of Jesus would lead men and women who put their faith in him into God’s intimate presence.
The Good News for all mankind allows men and women to choose God’s way of righteousness over their own works. God is a just God who will allow only what is good and right in his presence. A life of 60% good and 40% bad outside of Christ will not experience God’s acceptance. No, that life will experience death, for God does not tolerate imperfection. He will not allow sin to go unpunished, for that would violate his holy stature, his righteousness, his eternal existence. God’s salvation plan is to obliterate in men’s souls their contrariness to God’s authority, to substitute the Good News of grace and mercy in place of their rebellious spirits. We do not pay the price for our waywardness; Jesus paid the price for everyone’s sin. He experienced the full wrath of God, even to the point of death. In faith, we exchange our lives for his life. We no longer live before God in our sins; we live before God hidden in the righteousness of the Messiah. The New Testament proclaims that our souls are literally part of the body of Christ. Paul wrote, For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3) In Christ, we are presented to the righteous, perfect God. Jesus is the head of the body of the living church. Our transformation from death to life is his work: old man to the new creature. So, if our hearts condemn us for who we are in the flesh, by faith we place the health of our souls in the hands of Jesus Christ. His work is perfect and finished. IT IS FINISHED are his last words on the cross. God fully implemented his transformational salvation plan at the cross. The wrath of God on sin was satisfied for all those who believe in the work of the cross. Consequently, we know that we live in this truth. If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. God’s plan of salvation through the works of Jesus Christ is greater, more thorough, than anything we could conceive. Therefore, we do not let our hearts condemn us by depending on our own righteousness. If we do, we belittle the plan of God and sadly count Jesus’ suffering of no consequence to our salvation. The truth of the scriptures is that God’s plan is the ONLY PLAN that will place man in right relationship with a holy God. Other self-righteous ways of pleasing or appeasing a perfect God will always fall short. Any audacious substitute for God’s perfect plan places us in danger of God’s judgment on sin. Christ is the only way! From the very beginning of time, since the fall of Adam, mankind has been under the judgment of God. When Noah’s ark rested on dry ground, God made a covenant with mankind; allowing the existence of men to continue, even though, planted within them was the Adamic gene of rebellion. This willful anti-God nature would cause darkness and violence to prevail in every country, race, and ethnic group. No century or millennium is free from the signs of man’s evil and wrath. But Jesus has come to the world to deliver men and women from this dilemma. This is God’s plan for his creation: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. If we follow God’s plan, we will live in God’s presence. His shadow will always fall on our lives. We will live as He desires, with hearts of compassion and love for the world. When we live that way, we remain in the will of God. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. We no longer live by commandments, we live by the Spirit in us, by his voice within us. We are infilled with his Spirit when we take Jesus as our Savior, yet we often still try to live by Old Testament regulations on how to please God. But the Spirit of God within us leads us not by regulations or obedience to laws, but by his voice.
If we live by the Spirit, we will not limit God in our lives. We will not condemn ourselves, but will live in freedom. In fact, in God WE ARE LIMITED ONLY BY OUR OWN VISION. When we are in right relationship with God because of our faith in Jesus Christ and his works, we have God’s face shining on us, helping us to see our paths clearly. We walk in his shadow, presenting his likeness to the world. When we limit God’s work in our lives, the world has difficulty seeing God in us. When we become lazy, eating of the wrong food, desiring the wrong activities for our spirits, we lose our purpose for living. As Christians, our purpose should be to reveal the pristine or wholesome life of God. We are to set our minds on the healthy things that promote eternal life within us. The Bible says, Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. (Colossians 3:2) If we do so, our hearts will not condemn us. If our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. We must realize everything in the world that attracts us can be a danger to our soul’s health. If a man or woman claims to love God, but loves this world and lives immersed in the attitudes of the world, he or she cannot love God. These people are drinking at the wrong fountain of life, drinking death and expecting life. Such lives will produce the wrong kind of fruit. Their children and friends will believe winning the world is the meaning of life, but such a life is finite while God’s life of the Spirit goes on forever. Teaching to win the world, such as the prosperity teaching, presents problems because carnal thinking produces its own kind. People become intrenched in this life with their tent poles deeply embedded in the wilderness, seeking the comforts and amenities of the world, content with this short lifespan, ignoring God. But Christians should seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are the fruit of the Spirit we find in Galatians 5. These attributes will be the products of seeking first the kingdom of God, not the desire for new cars, nicer houses, exotic vacations, impressive jobs, and the like. Striving for power, recognition, and status in this world is often detrimental to the spirit of peace, quietness and love. As John states, we set our hearts at rest in his presence. If we feel chastened or condemned, we must go back to the truth: Jesus and his works set us free from the works of the flesh—bondage to this world of darkness. If we feel good about the way we are walking, we should open our lives to more ministry to others. We should not be limiting ourselves by our lack of vision. We should allow God to open up new truths in our spirits, speaking the Good News through our lives. We should understand his shadow falls on us daily. Let us believe great things will happen in our lives, yet be content wherever we are camped today. How great is our God? Great enough to take care of us, to lead us through this wilderness we call life. Let us image that God to the world. Some years ago, Mom went on a church sponsored mission trip to help on some church repairs in a Yupik village in Savoonga, Alaska. In the evenings, the people would gather around the elders to listen to their stories. The first thing they would say is, “Let me tell you about my miracles,” then they told amazing tales of God’s goodness to them from simple blessings to times God brought them through the fog back to the village. What miracles do you have to share with someone today?
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