Praise the Lord! - is the glad shout of the Christian even as this Season draws to a close:
For unto you is born...a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Lk 2 KJV

Our recent study of Galatians has powerfully revealed depths and complexities of belief in Jesus -Messiah, and the message of the gospel for each believer.

How exciting and profound that in the end, after all of these examinations, with Paul, we simply affirm that compared to the transformation experience in the life of a converted sinner, acts of holiness, works of obedience and devotion, are nothing - in themselves:
in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. (Gal 6.)

A key passage at the end of chapter six, from verse 11 to its close, passionately speaks a credo that invigorates and strengthens my faith and practice: that the Christian's glory lies in the transforming reality of a bloodied Cross, and that our lodestar in this life, and our highest meaning is a changed mind, heart and life - the transformation into a new person.

The Scripture adds these truths: that by the Cross the world is crucified, by the Cross the Christian becomes himself crucified to worldly things, and the light shed by this sacrifice reveals that inner, heart change is the key to this victorious and joyful new existence. There is a fascination in looking at my own changes - some unwanted! - as I allow the Lord to have His way in fitting me for a heavenly future. Yes, the world must be put to death - its unlovely, repellent ways and values must be exposed and become the picture that presents itself, more and more, when I look at it. I see more and more my own awkwardness in the midst of sin, both within me and around me. I become more and more dependent on that cleansing flood to wash me, to cover me and transform me day by day. I must radically, brutally separate myself from a lost world, so that I am more and more open to the life and Spirit of Jesus to work in me.

Out of the Cross experience, that new person becomes a person with peace, a person who understands that they have experienced the mercy of God in heaven, as the scripture says. Not a person following unnecessary and perhaps legalistic rites and rituals, such as circumcision, nor a person ignoring and resisting any guidelines and standards - or, for that matter, making up their own - but a new creature:

Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know we him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Cor 5.)

God's way is not our own. We are to follow His leading to enter into newness. The need to follow Him, to plumb the depths of His Spirit reveals the reason that He is our lodestar - it is through His literal Person that we find our way forward every moment. Here is the meaning of picking up our Cross daily, of dependence, and of unceasing prayer. And so Paul's credo is mine, is all of ours, believers, as we go ever forward into God's will. It is not circumcision, or forms, nor is it the simple absence of ritual or new self-created ritual, that moves us forward: it is our deeper experience of the indwelling of God's Spirit, transforming our experience in this world and in him now and forever.

A clean heart to worship, O God

The presence of the Holy Spirit always is felt in a stronger, deeper way when we come together in our study and fellowship times!  

SELF-DECEIT. This past Sabbath, it seemed our study group felt pricked about self-deceit. We could see the reality of the dangers  described in our key Scripture passages resulting from making our own decisions outside of counsel from God’s word. It all came down to each believer’s willingness to trust God’s way or our own - and we have two strong pictures of our Lord’s broken heart plainly putting this before us.  In the fifth chapter of Genesis, He reveals the sin-sick condition of the pre-Flood generation:

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that...when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great...and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (5).

And by the time of the break up of the Israelite nation that he had shaped, we see those generations caught in the same set of behaviors in God’s word through Jeremiah in chapter 16 through 17:

It shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us?

Then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Lord, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law; And ye have done worse than your fathers; for behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me (16:10-12).

OUR HEART FOR GOD.  This condition of those who will not stay obedient to God’s words comes out of constant decisions to do one’s own thing - to go with our own ways and prefer our own reasoning.  God always speaks plainly to His people, laying out their errors with pain, and pronouncing his judgments - even while holding out the promises of hope and restoration if we will repent and turn away from sinning against Him.  But the confrontation with our own evil is important for us, as we see in Jeremiah’s continued prophesying:

Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.  For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh...

Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.  For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters...

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (17:5-9)

Trusting and believing in our own strength and innate virtue is a mistake.  Our capacity to trust this spiritual insight and believe it will determine our decisions to obey the Lord and walk in His truths...  

*May God's Spirit Be With You As You Study - And Experience His Guiding You Into His Will*

Christian Growth From Flesh to Spirit

From Flesh to Spirit - amazing journey!

God’s command to worship Him in a special way during Sabbath not only signifies our obedience to our Lord, it plunges us into the framework for experiencing Him: sanctification.


Bible Study Points: SCRIPTURE’S LIFE-CHANGING SIGNIFICANCE
THE POINT: THE NEWLY-SEEN TRUTH AND REALITY ABOUT GOD.   As we continue in obedience to God’s commands and claims on our lives he brings us deeper into relationship with Him.  One key change that happens in us moves us from experiencing our lives through self and flesh to experiencing our changing lives through Him and His spirit.


THE SIGNIFICANCE: THE STUDY AND INSIGHT
A Word for me.  In Exodus and Deuteromony’s Sabbath commands I see that worship forms part of the continuum of a life of obedience.  Sabbath worship is a special illustration of our heart of obedience and its love response.  This response that God asks of us really can be seen as a guide for sin-blinded humans to know how we should relate to what he is like and what he really wants - respectful, focused time together! Not so unreasonable...


This life of obedience can be also understood as the ongoing experience of sanctification.  Sanctification then becomes the framework for the heart of my Christian experience, my daily experiences with God.  Paul clearly points to this journey of obedience in 2 Corinthians 5 in: the movement from “flesh” to “spirit.”

The passage.  Paul’s 2 Corinthinans discourse describes the view of the Christian who has learned to live spiritually.  Verse 16-17 shows the outcome: Christians who no longer relate to each other “after the flesh” or an outward human point of view.  “Yea, even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.” “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” 

The Context.  This creature is new - transformed.  How? In our steadfast looking to Jesus Our Savior, we experience the spritualization or sanctification process only experienced through focusing on Him, that can move us from living enslaved to “fleshly” concerns to being daily focused on looking for pathways to heaven in all experiences.  

As Paul illustrates, whether the Christian actively ministers or sleeps in death, the aim has been to serve God faithfully (6-9).  And he further emphasizes, “whether we be beside ourselves (crazy) it is to God: or whether we be sober  it is for your cause,” which continues to give service to God (13).  

The outward concerns, even of preserving their human life, become less important than serving God faithfully.  This Christian has plunged deep into the experience of sanctification and moving from fleshly to spiritual living: even death becomes but a threshold to an ultimate resurrection and being with God. 

*May God's Spirit Be With You As You Study – And Experience His Guiding You Into His Will*