EXAMPLES OF TRUE CHRISTIANITY
EXAMPLES OF TRUE CHRISTIANITY
At the
risk of sounding like I am polishing the old apple, I just have to say that our
Pastor and His wife are two of the godliest, the most loving and the most Holy
Spirit anointed people I have ever met. They love God with every fiber of their
being and they love people as they love themselves and Bonnie and I have no
shadow of a doubt that the Lord divinely directed us to this church for our
continued growth and training.
What do
you look for in a church? Do you look for one with a certain political or
doctrinal agenda or point of view, or one that tickles your ears, or one that
wows you with high tech smoke and mirrors, or lavish riches and high fashion,or
do you look for one where the presence and power of God and the love of God and
the truth of God are in operation?
You
see, Pastors and their wives really set the tone of what a church will be like
and when you have a Pastor and his wife who genuinely love the Lord, love
truth, love people, walk in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit with no
guile, you have a church family in which there are many loving people and
powerfully anointed leaders and an undivided church family.
Our
pastor is what I would call an expository preacher/teacher. Like I said, he has
no political or doctrinal agenda. You don’t hear him proof texting some unique
point of view or toeing the denominational line at the expense of truth and
while he loves and believes in his denomination he is not what you would call
an institutional man. He preaches Jesus and the Word week after week with power
and conviction and passion and Bonnie and I thank God for His ministry because
we are strengthened in the Lord, we learn something every week and the Holy
Spirit motivates us to live for Jesus.
The
good news is that His denomination promotes the very kind of ministry he brings
to us, because as far as I can tell, they don’t have some kind of religious
agenda… some hierarchy, or chain of command to which Pastors must adhere, for
Jesus is the head of the church and Spirit and truth are its bylaws.
Given
the critical times in which we live, our church is praying, even crying out for
revival and revival involves true worship, because true worship will shape and
mold every aspect of our lives. We are either living for God or we are living
for ourselves and as our pastor pointed out in his sermon yesterday,” Sin can
be covered by the blood of Jesus, but self must be nailed to the cross.”
Like
any church we have people at ever spiritual level. Some on the fringes, some
hurting, some in a battle for their lives and others that have found that
secret place of the Most High where their faith has made them into givers instead
of takers, builders instead of destroyers, encouragers instead of those who
need encouragement.
There
comes a point in our walk with God where the tables are turned. Instead of
needing our dead spiritual batteries charged every week, we become the ones
with the jumper cables to recharge those whose spiritual electrical systems are
still shorted out in some way that drains them.
At one
point in His ministry, Jesus took his disciples down a “wrong road.” It was a
road that all Jews avoided. It was not only the long way around, but it went to
the wrong side of the tracks so to speak. Jesus purposely took this “wrong”
turn and went to the despised people of Samaria to meet a certain woman at a
well who had been married seven times and had given up on marriage and was just
living with the 8th guy and Jesus told her some of the most
astounding things in Scripture.
Jesus
admitted to her that He was the Messiah, something that He usually hid from the
Jews. He explained to her that a time was coming when people would worship
neither on the Samaritan mountain nor in Jerusalem, but in fact He said: “An
hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in
spirit and in truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.”
Then
Jesus pointed out another foundational truth to this woman. He said: “God is
spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.” John
4:22-24
This
truth that Jesus gave to her was the announcement of a paradigm shift. It
announced a kind of worship that neither the Jews nor the Samaritans could
enter into until after Jesus’ death and resurrection and the subsequent
outpouring of His Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. It was a paradigm shift
that John the beloved announced concerning Jesus‘ ministry as well saying:
“For
the law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus
Christ.” John 1:17
We may
take John’s announcement lightly, but it represents a move from a Moses/Law
based religion, to a Jesus/Holy Spirit based living relationship with God. It
represented a change of priesthood from the Levitical priesthood to the
Melchizedek priesthood. It represented a change of Law from the letter of the
Law on tables of stone, to the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
To this
day there are still Christian denominations that try to base their foundations
in the Law of the Old Covenant rather than in God’s covenant with Abraham,
which is a covenant not of law, but of promise that was ratified between God
and Abraham 430 years before the Law was given on Sinai.
Somehow
we tend to ignore these monumental and epical shifts in God’s methods of
dealing with us. We like to quote God in His saying that He changes not. Mal
3:6 And so consequently God could not possibly change His mind about the
foundations of our faith. But that is where we fall short of the truth for the
New Covenant has always been God’s plan. Jesus was slain from the foundation of
the world and the Old Covenant was simply designed to teach us the nature of
Salvation that would come when the true Lamb of God finally came. And Paul was
careful to explain that the Law that came 430 years later did not interfere
with or invalidate the promises previously ratified by God. Gal. 3:17
This is
why Paul explains that the Law was added because of transgression UNTIL the
seed should come to whom the promises were made.” Gal. 3:19 The Law was given
as a tutor to lead us to Christ and now that Faith in Jesus has come we are no
longer under a tutor.” Gal. 3: 25 and
many chafe at this and continue to preach the Law, the Law, the Law when in
fact one of the most foundational truths of the Bible is the fact that the New Covenant
is not based upon the Law of Moses, but on the covenant of promise God made to
Abraham and the Bible further brings it home by informing us:
“And if
you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to
promise.” Gal. 3:29. Galatians further explains to us that the promises were
made to Abraham and his seed, not meaning many seeds, but to one Seed which is
Jesus Christ. When you receive Jesus Christ, then you receive all that was
promised through the covenant God made with Abraham including the priesthood of
Melchizedek, the bread and wine, which is our communion with God and with each
other through the shed blood and the broken body of our one and only Savior
Jesus Christ. Gal. 3:16, 17 All of this is made possible because Jesus sent
down His very Spirit to dwell in us and to transform us into His image. There
is no way that the Law can improve on that or even to accomplish that.
It is a
travesty of giant proportions to try to live by a Law that made no one perfect
when we could be living by the very indwelling Spirit and Word of Christ that
can actually transform us into His image. We choose to live by types and
shadows rather than by the living realities that Jesus brought and these new
living realities do not break the Law, but rather fulfill it in the way that
God originally intended for it to be fulfilled.
Jesus
was standing at the fulcrum point between two covenants and throughout His
ministry He was taking on His shoulders the burden that had once been carried
by the Law. He was announcing a paradigm shift when He said, “Come unto me all
who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you the rest.” Mt. 11:28 This
rest that Jesus offers is a kind of rest that the Sabbath of the Law can never
bring. . Again Jesus said: “IF you love Me you will keep My Commandments and yet
in context He was not referring to the Law of Moses on stone. He was referring to His instructions
concerning the New Covenant.
Jesus
said, “ A new commandment I give to you that you love one another, even as I
have loved you, that you also love one another; By this all men will know that
you are My disciples, if you have love one for another.” John 13:34, 35. Her
Jesus is holding up His infinite and powerful life in juxtaposition to the
temporary Law that could not bring the kind of righteousness that HE would
bring.
So why
do I keep harping on this issue between the Law and grace? After all, Grace
does not break the Law… in fact we can fall from grace if we continual to
willfully break the Law. So what is the big deal?
The
reason is that genuine revival and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit are
directly related to whether we are
living by Law or by true grace.
To
those who preach the Law Paul would say:
You
foolish Christians, who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ as
publicly portrayed as crucified. This is the only thing I want to find out from
you; did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of
faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being
perfected by the flesh?” Gal. 3:1-3
But to
those who are teaching false grace these days that it doesn’t matter what we
do, God loves us anyway so we can live for ourselves and live like the world
and He will forgive us and we will all be saved in the end.” Paul would say to
them:
“For
through the Law I died to the Law that I might live to God. I have been
crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me an delivered Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God;
for if righteousness comes through the Law then Christ died needlessly.” Gal.
2:19-21
So the
statement that our Pastor made in his sermon this week is absolutely true for
all Christians everywhere: “Our sins can be covered by the blood, but self must
be nailed to the cross.”
The
issue is not in keeping the Law. The issue is in being crucified with Christ,
so that Christ can live His holy and sinless life in and through us. The Law
cannot get us there. Only the indwelling Spirit of Christ can get us there and
that is why we must let go of the Law as our source and fully cling to Christ
the solid Rock on which we now stand.
True
love and true obedience can only come to pass when Jesus has become Savior,
Lord and King of our lives… when He Himself has become our life… for when He is
truly on the throne then we will not be intimidated to share Him with others.
If self is truly dead then we will cease to be self-serving and
self-preserving, or self-defending, or self-centered and we will begin to love
the Body of Christ and the communion we have through the blood and body of
Jesus and the Spirit of Christ who raised Him from the dead to become our High
Priest after the order of Melchizedek.
The New
Covenant is something that I dare say most of the Body of Christ has yet to
fully enter into. It is neither cheap grace nor is it based upon the Law. It is
in being crucified with Christ so that it is no longer I who live, but Christ
living in me.
When I
look at it in these terms, my complacency falls away and I find myself crying
out to God for deliverance from myself. I am neither able to crucify myself or
to die to self. Surely this must be a work of the Word and of the Holy Spirit
that attends that Word. Surely this is the work of Grace… not to give me a free
pass, so to speak, but to enter me into Christ’s death and to lift me up by the
power of His resurrection to live a life in which self is dead and Christ is
fully alive.
This is
the salvation that we must work out with fear and trembling, lest any part of
self- prevents the full working of Christ in our hearts and lives. This is the
kind of life that will bring revival to floundering churches… that will prevent
us from falling away.
“Let us
therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive
mercy and may find grace to help I time of need.” Heb. 4:16.
Mercy: Is God’s willingness to forgive our sins
through the blood of Jesus
Grace: Is God’s power to transform us into His
image.
Comments
Post a Comment