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Let
those wonderful words of God as uttered by the Apostle
Paul sing in your inner being, -"There
is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus."(Rom.8:1) Where
there is no condemnation, there is no sentence imposed.
This brings to mind the time when a young woman caught
in the act of adultery was dragged before Jesus by
Jewish religious leaders. They demanded her death by
stoning as required by law, then asked Jesus, -"What
do You say?" Jesus
answered,"Let
he without sin cast the first stone." Being
self-convicted, one by one they left, leaving her alone
before the Lord who asked, "Where
are they that accuse you?" Then
He said, "Neither
do I condemn you, go and sin no more." (John
8:11)
Notice carefully, that although Jesus
forgave her of the sin, He commanded that she stop
committing the sin of adultery. Hebrews
10 tells
us that those who continue to sin willfully will not be
forgiven but suffer the judgment, and can expect to
perish in the Lake of Fire!
But it is God's will that we be forgiven,
and as long as we strive to live according to His will,
He will do the rest through our Messiah, Jesus.
Once we are in Christ, through repentance
,baptism, and the receiving of the holy spirit, we are
God's own children, and friends of Jesus. We now address
Him, as our Father in prayer, and He regards us as His
blessed and holy children. Notice Romans
8:14-16 "For all who are being led by the spirit of God,
these are sons
of God. For you have not received a spirit of
slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a
spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out "Abba!
Father!" The spirit himself bears witness with our
spirit that we are children
of God."
If you are in Christ, God
is crazy about you! To
put it further in the vernacular, -He
is head over heels in love with you! And
He wants a close personal relationship with you. That is
why it is so important to strive to live a holy life.
Sin separates us from our heavenly Father. Remember,
even in the case of Jesus, who was God's Son before the
foundation of the world - separation occurred when the
sins of humanity were placed upon His shoulders. At that
very moment, Jesus cried out, -"Eli,
Eli, Lama Sabachthani?" Translates
to, -"My
God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?"
James, the brother of Jesus said that if
we submit to God and His way of life, then resist the
devil, it will enable us to be close to God. This is
accomplished by cleansing ourselves of practicing sin.(James
4:7-8)
Christians sin and are forgiven daily by
the cleansing blood of Jesus, but Christians do not live
in sin. They do not live outside the Commandments as a way
of life. Jesus said, if we want to enter into
eternal life we must keep the Commandments. (Matt.19) Indeed,
the very definition of what sin is, is "practicing
lawlessness", or simply living outside of the Ten
Commandments. (1
John 3:4) The
first step toward a close relationship with our Heavenly
Father is coming to see our need to repent of the
lawless way we have been living our life. Repent, simply
means to change. It
does not mean to besorry for
what we do but never change. There is no forgiveness
there.
As Christians, we were once dead in our
sins, as the woman caught in adultery was, but thanks be
to God and our Lord Jesus, we have been pardoned.
Pardoned, yes, but with the same instruction given her, "Go
and practice sin no more."
Notice 1
John 3:7-10, -"Little children, let no one deceive you;
the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just
as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the
devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The
Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might
destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born
(begotten) of God practices sin, because His Seed (holy
spirit) abides in him; and he cannot (practice) sin,
because he is born (begotten) of God. By this the
children of the devil are obvious; any one who does not
practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who
does not love his brother."
The holy spirit in us helps us to see and
understand how truly evil sin is. The holy spirit is God
in us, giving us the ability to experience His
feelings toward
sin.
God sent His only Son to die for your
sins and mine didn't He? What Jesus endured was horrible
and almost beyond belief. He was betrayed, beaten so
badly His flesh hung like ribbons and His bones were
exposed, He was mocked, spat on and cruelly nailed to a
cross to die. He could have called thousands of Angels
at any given moment to rescue Him, but He didn't. He
said that no one was taking His life, but that He was
willingly laying it down for you and me.
God the Father and Jesus the Son, knew
this day would come, they had planned it from before the
foundation of the world.(Rev.13:8) Even
so, it was one of God's most dreaded days. A time when
the Father and Son would be separated for the first
time. Though Jesus was willing to suffer because of
sinful man, it was extremely difficult. After the
Passover, Jesus took Peter, James and John with Him into
the garden of Gethsemane to keep watch while He prayed.
Being deeply grieved and distressed He said to them, -"My
soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain
here and keep watch with Me."(Matt.
26:38) In
prayer so intense great drops of blood fell from His
troubled forehead, He asked, -"If
it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I
will, but as Thou wilt." But
my friends, it wasn't possible, was it? Our sins were so
ugly and vile to God, that our Lord had to suffer such a
death as that to save us.
Have you ever asked yourself,
-"What sins?" Just what were the sins I was committing
that separated me from my Father, and that were so bad
that Jesus had to suffer so horribly to cleanse me of
them? Simply
put, it is because we practiced breaking the Ten
Commandments.
Have you always loved God, putting Him
first in your life? (First
Commandment) Have
you ever had images or objects of worship in your home.
Not just a pagan image but any image used to worship.Remember,
the bronze serpent that Moses made, which God commanded,
was later used as an object of worship to God's
displeasure.(2
Kings 18:4) (Second
Commandment) Have
you ever taken God's Name in vain or used it in a
careless way? (Third
Commandment) Have
you ever practiced not keeping the Seventh-day Sabbath? (Fourth
Commandment) Have
you practiced disobeying or dishonoring your parents? Jesus
said, to lightly esteem (curse) your parents makes you
worthy of death! (Fifth
Commandment) Have
you ever murdered? Jesus
said to hate another is to have murder in your heart. (Sixth
Commandment) Have
you ever committed adultery? Practiced sex outside of
marriage? Entertained sexual lust in your heart? (Seventh
Commandment) Have
you ever stolen from someone? Not paying your debts is
stealing. Not paying your tithes or giving offerings is
stealing from God. (Malachi
3) Have
you ever taken something from work without
authorization? (Eighth
Commandment) Have
you ever given false testimony about someone. Perhaps
you repeated what someone else told you that turned out
to be untrue? If you have misrepresented the truth, you
have lied. (Ninth
Commandment) Have
you ever coveted?
Have you ever simply wanted what someone else had? The
Apostle Paul said that he would not have even known
coveting was a sin had the law not identified it as
such. (Rom.7:7)
When we consider these Commandments, we
must understand that breaking any one of them as away
of life is
enough to cause you to be dead in your sins. Thus said,
If you haven't always put God first, -Jesus died for
that sin. If you haven't always kept the Sabbath holy,
-Jesus suffered and died for that sin. If you have
practiced sex outside of marriage, -Jesus died for that
sin of yours. If you have hated your brother, lied or
wanted what someone else had, -Jesus died for those sins
you committed, etc.
God so loved you and me that He gave His
only begotten Son in order that we might pass from death
to life, in order that we not perish but have
everlasting life.(
John 3:16) And
as long as we stay in Jesus, we are victorious and have
become conquerors. Through Jesus we conquer the desires
of the flesh which lead to death. Jesus has paid for our
sins in full, past, present and future. What a great God
we serve! If we don't quench the holy spirit, it will
give us the ability and even the desire to crucify the
temptations of the flesh. Simply resist
the devil and he will flee!
John says if we say "we do not sin," we
deceive ourselves. (1
John 1:8-10) But
he also writes that the Christian does not practice sin. (1
John 3:9) To
reconcile these two verses, we conclude as Paul
preached, we all sin and come short of the glory of God,
but if we don't practice sin as a way of life, sin is
not imputed to us. And although we strive to live
undefiled and holy lives, we realize that our
righteousness is as filthy rags compared to the
righteousness of God.
We stand in victory because Christ has
taken our sins and given us His righteousness. Notice
Paul in2
Corinthians 5:21, -"He made Him who knew no sin to be
sin on our behalf, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him." When
we kneel before God's throne in prayer, we appear before
our Father clothed with the righteousness of Christ. It
is not our human condition,
nor the present condition of our own character, but the position we
have been given through the wondrous sacrifice of the
Lord. Our CONDITION is not worthy, it is being worked on
by the power of the holy spirit. We are being
transformed by the renewing of our minds, bringing us
into complete conformity with the Father and the Son.
But our POSITION is one of purity, holiness,
sanctification and righteousness. It is as if being
washed with the blood of the Lamb is to be covered by a
spotless linen cloth. It is this that the Father sees,
it is our POSITION, one of forgiven and pure, while
underneath our CONDITION is being cleansed and worked on
through the holy spirit.
David says a righteous person is like a
tree planted by the water. Notice that the mightiest
Oaks begin as a small acorn. An acorn that holds its
ground will someday become a mighty Oak tree. So it is
with us that possess the "Seed" of eternal life, which
is the holy spirit. It is transforming us from an
"acorn" to a "mighty tree."
The contrast between Jesus and Lucifer is
as the difference between light and darkness. Lucifer
was given glory and honor in Heaven. He walked among the
very throne of God. (Ezek.28) Yet
he wanted more. He desired the throne of God and sought
to take it by force. He thought, -"I
will ascend and establish my throne in Heaven." (Isa.14)
We see by the Scriptures that Jesus was
God, the Son. It was He that actually created all
things.(John
1) Yet
He was willing to lay down His holy and perfect life in
order that others may live.
Lucifer sought his own glory. Jesus died
to bring many sons to glory. Philippians
2 tells
us that He
"did
not think equality with God a thing to be grasped." Another
rendering is -"He
did not think equality with God should be selfishly
sought." As
Lucifer sought his own glory saying, "I
will be like the Most High." Lucifer
tried to "ascend",
Jesus "descended" became
a mortal man, overcame the devil's temptation to live a
sinless life, then gave His life to receive our sins,
and to bestow His righteousness, on us. Lucifer sought
after divinity, Jesus emptied Himself of divinity and
destroyed the works of the devil as a mere man! Jesus is
VICTORIOUS!
"When He had disarmed
the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of
them, having triumphed over them through Him."
(Colossians 2:15) Through
which Jesus has canceled out the debt of our
transgressions. (vs 13-14)
Let us live with the knowledge that as long as we abide
in His way of life, we are victorious. When the devil
reminds us of our past, we will remind him of his
future! When he seeks to engender doubt, we say "Faith
sees the invisible, Believes the incredible and Receives
the impossible!" And
when he lays claim to us, we say, -"I've been bought
and washed with the blood of the Lamb, get your filthy
hands off! Begone Satan! I
have VICTORY IN JESUS!"
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