Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at The Reality of The Resurrection P18 (01-10-22)
We Live by Faith Not by Sight
The way we live the Christian life is by faith, not sight. Most all believers look forward to being at home with Jesus, but while we are here, God has a mission for us. He has given us a ministry of the Holy Spirit for each of us. Now that ministry of the Holy Spirit is not doing things in the flesh. The flesh is that which rears it’s ugly head from time to time, and we think we are doing something good based on our own understanding of things. Or, that which makes us really feel good inside (because it is something “we” ourselves are doing), yet it may not be something the Holy Spirit would have you do.
Understanding our rewards given to believers is based on what we have allowed the Holy Spirit to do in and through us. Giving a cup of water. Or sharing a word of God to a person hurting. Comforting a stranger with a kind word. The things that as we are led by the Holy Spirit to do will stand the test of time. The things done in the flesh (though we may think they are good) will be burnt up. They will not remain and are not counted as “good” from God’s perspective.
Bob has mentioned a number of times (in a joking manner), that people will probably say afterwards, after the fire has burned up everything done in the flesh, that my pile of ashes will be taller than your pile of ashes.
2 Corinthians 5:6-10
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
The best thing that God can say to us, “well done, good and faithful servant!”
Matthew 25:23
23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
A Closer Look at The Reality of the Resurrection
Fear the Lord
Fear of the Lord is not being fearful of Him, but a reverence for Jesus.
Now we are told to no longer live for themselves but for others. Help others in need. Think about others. We now live for Christ. Why? Because Jesus is alive living in us. The old is gone and the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:16-20
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Christ in you is our only hope of glory. When we have Christ Jesus alive living in us, we have been made a new creation. God now lives in a believer. Before we were born again, we were like a light bulb without any electricity. A light bulb doesn’t work without electricity. It’s like a car without gasoline. God created man to be indwelt by the Spirit of God. Man doesn’t work properly without the Holy Spirit alive living in us.
Romans 6:6 teaches us that the old man was crucified with Jesus. That was the old me, without the Spirit of God living in me. The new me is with the Spirit of God living in me. That is my new self. The old self will never ever be again.
Romans 6:6
6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—
Once we are in Christ, we need to focus on Jesus who is alive living in me. We begin to focus on the needs of others rather than our own needs. Before we were in Christ Jesus, everything was about me. Me, me, me was the focus of all my attention. We also become more aware of that in others too. The world lives in the me, myself and I mode of operating in the flesh, for that is all they have. The mindset of the lost person is living for self.
Once we have the Holy Spirit living in us He makes us whole. We are a new creation. God never intended man to be without the Spirit of God living in us. So God makes us whole again when the Holy Spirit comes to live in the believer. Christ is our only hope of glory. Religion is not our hope of glory. Things of the world are not our hope of glory. Only Christ in you is our 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.
When Christ lives in you, you have been restored.
Listen as Bob continues teaching about the Holy Spirit living in us. God will teach us all truth, because Truth lives in us.
Truth sets you free. And we need to focus on Him living in us. Yet there are lies of religion. Religion will take things out of context and try to get you to not live by faith. Just like Satan used scripture and quoted it back to Jesus, the same things happen with us too. We are in conflict with our own lives. We have been taught lies from the beginning and we need to get back into the Truth and allow the Holy Spirit to show us truth of the lies going on in the world.
When we are spiritually born again of the Holy Spirit of God, we are now being taught by God directly. We are now alive to God and dead to the world. So we should count ourselves dead to the world. We need to recognize that God Lives in us.
Romans 6:11
11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
We still need to understand that we still reside in the body of flesh. Romans 7 teaches this in regards to the body of flesh
Romans 7:14-19
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
John 3:3
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
