Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at The Reality of The Resurrection P15 (01-03-22)
Rejoice in the Finality of the Cross and The Reality of The Resurrection
Welcome to a continuation A Closer Look at The Reality of The Resurrection. We also encourage you to pick up a copy of A Closer Look at The Finality of The Cross.
Understanding both the Cross and the Resurrection are keys to understanding the gospel. When you study the word of God, allow the Holy Spirit to renew your mind and reveal the truth to you.
Romans 12:2
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Jesus took away the wrath of God for our sins. He did not atone for sins, He took them away. Propitiation means it was satisfied for the sins of the whole world. It is finished. He loved us so much that He did this for us! He took away ALL OUR SINS! Once we grab a hold of this Truth then we rest in His Love for us. This is what it means to obey Him. Rest in His Love for you today.
A Closer Look at The Reality of the Resurrection
Christ in You, Your Hope of Glory
Colossians 1:27
27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Understanding that Christ lives in you is vitally important (for those that are born of the Spirit). Yet people want to stay under their religion of ongoing forgiveness and don’t have a clue about Christ in them, the only hope of glory. Many times we have reduced Christianity to only half a gospel, which is no gospel at all. People think salvation is forgiveness yet forgiveness was what cleared the deck for eternal life to be given to us (by faith) in the one that took away all our sins on the cross. We need the Spirit of God to come live in us. Religion teaches people how to keep ourselves forgiven. Religion sows to the flesh.
Jesus is the only one that can live the Christian life. No one can live the Christian life themselves. He lives His life through you if you are in Christ Jesus. Religion is hypocrisy. And people that live under the law and religion are fearful of being found out. It’s a life of hypocrisy.
Galatians 2:20
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
The Apostle Paul realized that he was a new creature in Christ Jesus. His identity changed when he came to know Jesus. Prior to knowing Jesus he was Saul of Tarsus, and afterwards he became known as the Apostle Paul. He became a child of God. Now he realized that he lives by faith.
At first we have a wonderful walk with Jesus because we realize that God loved us so much that He died for me! But then legalism sets in. People don’t understand and they try in the energy of their flesh to go out and do things for God. They even become fearful of what God may do to them or fearful of the world.
1 John 4:18
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Yet, so many people are not resting in the love of God. They keep going back in fear. Fear that their sins have not been forgiven. In fact, many people that are afraid of dying are fearful because they do not have Jesus living in them. So today, put that fear to rest and thank God for His forgiveness on the cross for your sins personally and for giving you eternal life the very moment you place faith in Him. If you are unsure if you have ever accepted Jesus life for you, then clear that up right now. Mark this date down and say to God, “thank you for forgiving me on the cross for all of my sins and for giving me your eternal life in me!” Be Born Free!
So you come to God by faith, but then this fear sets in. Some may think they can lose their salvation, while others begin to think that no, I won’t lose my salvation but God is going to wallop me with something, like a big flyswatter in the sky. Then there are others that are fearful of going in and out of fellowship with God. People are in fear of their sins, for they know if they think thoughts that are not good in their minds, that God looks on that as sin and that was causing God to be on some sort of swivel chair of bouncing in and out of fellowship.
We need to understand Love. We need to understand His love for us. This is key to our Christian walk.
1 John 4:10
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
The love of God is us responding to His love for us. We are already accepted and loved by Him for those that are in Christ Jesus. We need to understand how this ongoing love for us never changes. We who are in Christ live in His Love.
1 John 4:16
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
God’s desire for you and me is for us to understand His Love for you and me. We need to grab a hold of this. Why? Because love changes you. Once you realize God’s love is forever, it changes you completely from the inside out.
Ephesians 3:16-19
16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Once you understand His love for you, then you become convinced of it. It’s one thing to verbalize it, but it is something entirely different to be convinced of it. For when you are convinced of something, you know nothing can separate you from it. Paul was convinced.
Romans 8:37-39
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Are you convinced? Really convinced in your heart that nothing can separate you from His Love? Once you have that, the whole world can turn against you, but you know God will never separate you from Him.
We continue in 1 John 4:19 that we love because He first loved us.
1 John 4:19
19 We love because he first loved us.
When we abide in Him, the love of God is in us and lives through us. And remember that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God. This body of flesh is going to the grave.
Today you are a forgiven saint. You don’t get forgiven over and over again. You walk by faith in this. You praise God that He forgave you once for all of your sins! You place faith in His forgiveness for you on the cross. You don’t get redeemed over and over again. No one asks God over and over again to redeem them, so why would you ask God over and over to forgive you? That is not living by faith. That is living under the law and the flesh to ask for things over and over again of which God has already done.
Ephesians 1:7
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace
When the Holy Spirit comes to live in you as a believer, we are told that we are given the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:16
16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Yet man still tries to instruct God. People of the world say they don’t need God. People call things right that are wrong. People make up their own rules for sins. Their standard of truth is based on what they think. They become their own god.
John 3:3
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
