THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

                “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life and the life was the light of men; and the light shined in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to be called the children of god; even to those who believed on His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1: 1-5, 12-14

                Who was this Word? He was God. He created all that exists and then when we fell, He set aside His glory and came into the world to redeem us. Jesus was not just a martyred prophet. He was the Creator of all things. This fact makes Him the only One truly qualified to redeem us. There can be no other.

                But He was also the Word made flesh. He is the Word and the Word is Him. The Old Covenant tells us who the Messiah must be and what He must do in order to rescue us. People, like Hitler who blamed the Jews for killing Jesus Christ, only served to belittle God Almighty. Jesus came into the world for the purpose of dying and it was to the Jews that He came to accomplish this. That is why God had them reenacting this sacrifice over and over again in types and shadows. This is why He had them build a sanctuary. God perfectly spelled out who He must be and what He must do in order to save mankind.

                The New Covenant simply says, “Here He is. This is the One of whom the entire Old Covenant spoke. Jesus Himself said, “Here I am. I am the One. I am the Way, the Truth and the life. Before Abraham was, I Am. I Am that I Am in the burning bush. I am the Living Water. And John said, “Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world.”

                Jesus is the Word and the Word is Jesus. If we receive Jesus, we must receive His Word. If we receive His Word, then we must receive Jesus. It is that cut and dried. But just as Hitler belittled God by blaming the Jews for His death, so do we belittle God when we pick and choose the parts of the Word that we like, or when we claim to receive Him as Savior, but refuse to make Him both Lord and owner of our lives. We have been purchased by Him and by accepting Him, our lives are no longer our own. We belong to Him and it is in that belonging that we are made free. We are children of the King.

                But why am I reviewing these things? We are His remnant people. We already know these things and have accepted them. But I am reviewing this because I woke from a dream in which I was preaching this very thing that I am now writing.

                This tells me that the Holy Spirit wants me to review these things. If therefore you are reading this today and the Lordship of Jesus has not yet invaded your entire being, then this invitation is for you. It is time to come fully out of Babylon and fully into Christ. If this message seems to be for you, then fall to your knees wherever you are right now and receive Jesus as both Savior and Lord and then follow Him with all of your heart.

                Being born again is a term that has lost much of its meaning in the church today. It is a term that has been used to cover everything from casual Christianity, to institutional Christianity, to national Christianity to pagan Christianity.

                None of those things have any bearing on what it means to be a genuine Christian. Jesus said: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” Mt. 16:24

                We are called to be disciples. The word “disciple” comes from the word discipline, meaning that a disciple is one who has entered into the disciplines of the Lord. He follows in His footsteps and he does only what he sees Jesus doing even as Jesus did only those things He saw the Father doing.

                This is a tall order on a personal level and so Christians have wiggled out from under this by relegating Christ’s authority to the church, and the church in turn has softened the meaning of the cross to make it more palatable. But the new birth has become so watered down by the church that it now means anything people want it to mean. The new birth is nothing less than entering into the death of Christ and then being raised up in the power of His resurrection.

                 I am not talking about legalism here. What I am saying is that when a person is born again, God places a new spirit in him and as Christians, our goal is to learn how to live by that spirit and not by our flesh. This is what Romans 8:14 means when it says: “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.”

                This is no casual matter, for even as the Holy Spirit planted the Seed of the Father in Mary and she gave birth to the one and only Son of God, so the Holy Spirit plants the seed of the spirit of Christ in us and we become sons and daughters of God and Jesus literally becomes our elder Brother. We have been adopted into the same family as Jesus so that we too can call God Almighty our Father.

                Now, remember that when Jesus called God His Father, the Jews picked up stones to kill Him for blasphemy because He was making Himself equal with God. A son is of the same substance as his father.

                Hebrews 12:7 says: “It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”

                Jesus said that He and His father were one and He said to Philip that to see Him was to see the Father because God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.  Some try to make God out to be a mean old Ogre while Jesus came to stand between us and God to protect us from His wrath, but John 14 tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Why do we keep belittling God? Why do we keep treating Him as if He is not sovereign and all-knowing and all powerful?

                To give ourselves completely to God does not diminish us in any way, but lifts us up to be eternal children of the Most High God. We will rule and reign with Christ for eternity. Therefore this life is simply our training ground in which we learn how to live by His Spirit instead of by our fallen flesh. It is a noble thing we do when we sign on with Him. It is a noble thing to cast aside the rancid acts of the flesh and to learn to live by the Spirit of God.

                The world hates us. So it hated Christ. The world is mounting its final campaign to wipe out Jews and Christians because we are carriers of the Seed. So did it mount a campaign to destroy the Son of God at Calvary, but their victory was short-lived. Jesus rose from the dead, thereby conquering sin and death and the grave.

                Today we live in that victory as we live by the same Spirit that was in Christ. Upon His resurrection He sent His Spirit to us so that we could follow in His footsteps…do His works…overcome as He overcame.  Never mind that the term “Born Again’ is hated by the world and even by much of the church. Never mind that the term has been abused and misused by people who take the name of the Lord in vain. This does not diminish in any way what Jesus said to Nicodemus. We must be born again and that means entering into the death of His Cross and then being raised up to new life by His resurrection… new creatures in a new kingdom.

                Being a Christian is not a matter of trying. Being a true Christian is humanly impossible. Therefore being a true Christian means surrendering to the death of the cross so that Jesus can raise us up into the likeness of His resurrection. We now begin to live by the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. We cannot fail as long as we are living by that Spirit.

                Embrace the Word of God and the Son of God today and let Him transform you into a son or daughter of God, adopted into the royal family… the Remnant of her seed who keep the commandments of God and who bear the testimony of Jesus which is the Holy Spirit. The Commandments of God are fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit fulfills the Law. Gal. 5:22-23

                “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Gal.” 5:24, 25 Today is your day. The Lord has set before you an open door. Walk through it and into the glorious life of the Kingdom.