1 John 5:1-5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. As new creatures, by faith we have overcome the world, not that we might overcome the world, but that we have overcome the world. Christians carry out God’s commands because of our love for God. What does He command? What gives us victory over worldly attractions shrouded in fleshly desires? Living dedicated to God in our actions and words reveals God’s goodness and righteousness and fulfills everything He asks of us. Our obedience reflects the nature of God’s love towards humanity, even the unlovely, the froward, and the disobedient, for they are all made in his image. To image God clearly is to be obedient to his will of love. God is righteous, perfect, holy—the very definition of holy is God. To obtain this holiness outside of God’s grace is impossible for the flesh, born in sin. Consequently, his promise of making us eternal children in his image and nature has to be completed outside of the fleshly confines. We who are IN CHRIST carry the robe of perfection only because of his perfect work on Earth, not our attempts at perfection or holiness in this life. We are perfect because of the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sins. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:7) His redemption resides in us because of our faith in his righteous work that allows the Holy Spirit to take up residence within our souls. Now, as temples of God, known as children of God, we walk in his perfection, his holiness, his overcoming Spirit, not ours. Because of this knowledge, we love God wholeheartedly. We incline toward his voice, his direction for our lives. Although temptations, sickness, death, sorrow, and the like may cause our faith in God to wane a bit, the Spirit will lead us back. At all times, Jesus’ love is pure and consistent, never varies. Our love might burn hot in victory yet smolder at other times depending on our circumstances. When we feel discouraged or downtrodden, we might lack the wholehearted love that God expects of us. But the intensity of Jesus’ love flowing towards God and to his body never changes. Our love might fluctuate because of life’s vicissitudes, but in CHRIST our love never fluctuates because Christ is our sufficiency. Even when we have bitterness or anxiety about trusting God, we are hidden in the true love of Jesus Christ, assured that our love for God is always consistent because of Jesus’ propitiation for our sins. When we waver, we must turn to Jesus for our help.
The Bible tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves and to love those who hate us as well as those who love us and support us. If we want consistency and obedience in our walk, we must live by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7) Jesus is always consistent; IN HIM we are consistent. Does this give us permission to ignore God’s commands, trusting in God’s mercy? No, we are servants of God, so we repent of our lack of love and fall beneath God’s authority in our lives, loving everyone through Christ. As for loving God, we are to love him with all our soul, strength, mind, and spirit regardless of where and how we walk on this earth. We should never give ourselves fleshly excuses for not loving; nonetheless, we know only Jesus can fulfill our obligations completely, because at the cross He showed the love we should have for God and that we should show for the world. We are but flesh, not divine, but I (we) can do all things through him who gives me (us) strength. (Philippians 4:13) God’s intention for man was to make him into his image. Children inherit the DNA of the parents; we who are IN CHRIST carry the DNA of God through our faith in Christ’s death and resurrection. We died with him at the cross, and we were resurrected anew with him at his resurrection. His work birthed in us a new creature. Now, the promise for us who are alive in Christ is eternal life. This is the theme of the whole Bible: life given to us by God. Now God has fulfilled his plan of creating eternal life in humans though Jesus Christ. We IN CHRIST are alive evermore because Jesus is alive evermore. All of his promises to us of eternal life have come to realization through Christ. We say, “Amen” to that or “Yes.” Eternal life has come in us because God is the great “I will” God. Now it is God who MAKES both us and you stand firm IN CHRIST. He anointed us, SET HIS SEAL of ownership on us, and PUT HIS Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (2 Corinthian 1:21-22) We are the workmanship of God, not of our own making. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10) We overcome this world and its spirit of death because Jesus overcame this world. He lived without sin. We humans have not lived our whole lives without sin. So what then? We trust in God’s perfection IN JESUS CHRIST WHO HAS OVERCOME THE WORLD!
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12) We are trapped in the DNA of the flesh: mankind’s disobedience, willfulness, and lawlessness. Jesus did not come to give us new laws; He came to deliver us from laws we were never able to keep by giving us his Spirit, to bring in a new covenant. The belief in Jesus as the Son of Man, living and dying for the world frees men and women from entanglement with sin and death. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. When Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, the light brightly shining in his face blinded Saul. Saul was a wicked man, full of religious zeal. His intentions were to go to Damascus, arrest Jews who were following THE WAY, and walk them back in chains to Jerusalem a hundred and fifty miles away. Can you imagine the physical, mental, and emotional torture these men and women would have experienced on their walk to Jerusalem? Saul was willing to break up families to fulfill his murderous purposes for these Christians. To carry out his plan of arresting and enslaving the Damascus Christians, he brought companions with him, who aided him in his blindness, helping him finish his journey to Damascus. As Saul neared Damascus, Jesus accosted Saul with the words, Why do you persecute me? I am Jesus. (See Acts 22) The people Saul was persecuting were part of the body of Christ, people who were hidden IN CHRIST, integral parts of Jesus’ holy body. Therefore, Jesus tells Saul, you are persecuting me, not that you are persecuting some followers of mine. Jesus’ name is a stumbling stone for Saul and for any unbeliever. For Saul, the name of Jesus was an anathema, the last name he wanted to hear from that light that blinded him. The name of Jesus meant that he was one-hundred-eighty degrees wrong in his life choices. He was going the wrong way at a reckless speed towards eternal death. When we express Jesus to the world, this is exactly what is imprinted on their consciousness: they are going in the wrong direction at a harrowing speed. Paul was struck blind because God wanted to use his religious zeal for his purposes. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” (Acts 9:3-6) As Saul was willing to persecute the church of the living God, his new life would be one of much persecution. He zealously laid his life upon the altar for Jesus. What joy this should bring into our hearts as we analyze the turnaround in Saul’s life. Once a very religious person, capable of murdering good, innocent people, separating children from their parents, now transformed by the power of God. Paul went to Damascus with the intention to arrest people, even to kill them if necessary; he left Damascus to bring new life to the good and bad throughout the world. Dear friends around this breakfast table, we are no better than Saul, but God fulfilled his promise to us by bringing us eternal life through his Son. We should bow in tears, seeing our filthy rags of sin, our marred visage. Jesus came to us because the Father longed to redeem us and adopt us into his family, assigning each person a heavenly name. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. Who has overcome the gravity pull of death, who has broken the bonds of sin, who has placed the image of God on man’s life? JESUS CHRIST— THAT IS WHO! Join the saints through all the ages in praise to him!
No comments:
Post a Comment