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"But I do the very
thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law,
confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I
the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me." Romans
7:16-17
Jesus said, -"No
man can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws
him" (John 6)
"I have manifested Your
name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world;
they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have
kept Your Word." (John 17)
We cannot decide to come to Christ on our own but can
only answer His call when it comes and respond to the
convicting work of the Holy Spirit. Those who hear the
call of God today receive the honor of being the
first-fruits of God’s Harvest and will be in the first
resurrection, -"and I will
raise him up on the last day."
Notice also Revelation 20:6, -"Blessed
and holy is the one who has a part in the first
resurrection; over these the second death has no power,
but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will
reign with Him for a thousand years" Notice
Verse 5, -"The rest of the
dead did not come up until the thousand years were
completed."
When we are truly convicted we see the wickedness of
our sins for the first time which causes us to cry out
for forgiveness. We immediately see that we are guilty
and humbly fall to our knees realizing our desperate
need for God’s mercy. Initially we are so over-whelmed
by the multitude of our transgressions we just want to
have all of our sins forgiven and feel clean. But soon
afterwards we discover the principle of sin itself.
At conviction we first see our sins, and at
sanctification we make the discovery of the nature of
sin itself. At conviction we realized we had sins
standing against us that needed to be paid for, and at
sanctification we realized that we needed deliverance
from the power of sin.
Like this beloved Apostle, we too agree with the Law of
God but find ourselves doing the very things we hate.
Paul blamed the nature of sin which dwelled with him. He
understood that though he had already been forgiven of
the sins he had committed, he needed deliverance from
the power of sin, -"Wretched
man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of
this death?"
The answer is Jesus, -"Thanks be to God through
Jesus Christ our Lord!" No
matter how many sins you commit, it will always be the
sin-principle that leads you to them.
Not only do we need forgiveness
for what we have done, we also need deliverance from
what we are.
Thanks be to God, we have a Deliverer in Jesus.
In his letter to the Galatians Paul said that he had
been crucified with Christ and that the risen Savior was
now living His life in him. He taught the Romans that
Jesus died for our sins but was risen because of our
justification. (Rom.4) To be justified means to have
been examined and judged innocent. Since we are raised
with Him we must first be declared blameless and
innocent. How? As Paul said, -"To
live is Christ." (Phil.1)
We are sanctified when we receive the Holy Spirit. The
Spirit leads us to the discovery of the nature of sin,
but also to the nature of righteousness in our
Deliverer, -"For as through
the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners,
even so through the obedience of the One the many will
be made righteous." (Rom.5:19) Through
Adam we received the sin nature, but through Christ, the
"last Adam" we receive the holy nature of God.
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