Passage of the Day: Ephesians 5: 15 [highlight verse in bold/underlined] … 15 Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise, … 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.
My Journal for Today: John MacArthur makes a rather startling claim as he once again discusses Ephesians 5: 15 in today’s Strength for Today devotional. He maintains, supported by such Scripture as 1st Cor. 1: 3, and Col. 2: 3, as well as today’s passage, taken from Eph. 5: 1 – 16, that even the new, born-again believer has been endowed with enough wisdom to be able to fulfill the mandate of today’s verse/passage.
Ephesians 5: 1 – 14 [linked here for your meditation], which precedes today’s verse, [please read it!] is Paul’s forceful teaching that we must, as Christians, be imitators of God (i.e., Christ); and one verse in this passage is a linchpin verse for Battle Plan Ministry, the ministry into which God led me to found and lead over 10 years ago. It is Eph. 5: 3; and it states: “But among you [i.e., Christians] there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.”
That is a high standard for any Christian to uphold, let alone one who has become habitually, or maybe even addictively, wracked by habitual sexual sin. However, it is the mirror of truth because God is Holy; and we must aspire to be Holy, as He is Holy, … 24/7. Paul had no less that five separate exhortations in his New Testament epistles where he charged his fellow Christians to be Holy because of God’s holiness (see Rom. 12: 1, Eph. 1: 4, Col. 1: 22, 1st Thes. 4: 4, and 2nd Tim. 1: 9). And if that is not enough from God’s Spirit as the Author of Scripture, Paul was joined by Peter who quoted God from the Old Testament, Who commands His children to be Holy as He is Holy (see Lev. 11: 44, 19: 2, and 20: 7). REMEMBER, God never calls one of His own to do something that He, through His Spirit, will not enable that one to do (see 1st Cor. 10: 13 and 2nd Peter 1: 3-4).
So, though we have been given free-will, if we are truly IN CHRIST, we are driven by God’s Spirit to make choices that pursue and aspire to absolute holiness. Christ commanded us to shine His light through our lives into the darkness of a sin-engulfed world so that others can see God, the Father, being lived out in our lives (see Matt. 5: 16); and that can only happen when we live in holiness, reflecting the Holy light of Christ.
And yes, I agree with Peter’s contention that all Christians, are endowed by God’s Spirit with all they need to live holy and blameless in God’s sight (again, see 2nd Pet. 1: 3 – 4). Theologically and spiritually that’s our positional righteousness in Christ. However, reality and experience has shown me that new or immature believers are more susceptible in their posture to the foolishness and schemes of the devil and his system in the world. They are more vulnerable in their own deceit-ridden hearts as well (by now you should know Jer. 17: 9), especially if that heart has been saturated for much of the life of that new believer by habitual sin.
But even a babe in Christ is more capable of resisting sinful living and making Christlike choices than any non-believer. And over time, if that immature believer intentionally chooses to follow God’s word, seeking His will and His way, he will become a stronger, wiser, more Christlike believer, shining Christ’s light more often and with more intensity into the darkness and glorifying his Father in Heaven as he does so.
So, we must continually ask ourselves if we are forever pursuing God’s mind, especially in the face of an increasingly confusing and foolish world which presses us on all sides to take our minds off of God’s will and His way. We must look at our choices and determine if they are choices to follow self or the Savior. And if those choices are more and more the latter, we are growing in Christlikeness and shining an ever brighter light into this world.
My Prayer Today: Fill me, God, daily with Your mind. Amen
Showing posts with label positional righteousness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label positional righteousness. Show all posts
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
November 9, 2011 … Knowing the Right Answers
Passage of the Day: 1st Corinthians 1: 20 … Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
My Journal for Today: Today’s passage reminds one of the question James asked to start off this month, “Who is wise and understanding among you?” [James 3: 13] And the more that yours truly, this born-again believer, contemplates my search for Godly wisdom, the more awesome becomes the realization of what has happened to my mental approach to life since I became a converted believer in Christ.
The Apostle Paul laid out this process for Christians, beginning with today’s passage and on through 1st Cor. 1: 20 – 30 [which I’ll not print here for space considerations – but I expect you to study this passage to which I’ll link you for study]. He also related a similar exhortation to the Colossians (in Col. 2: 3) … that we Christians have “… all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Peter claimed that Christians have all we need from God (see 2nd Peter 1: 2 – 4) to live our lives in harmony with Him. And today’s passage closes with a question that hits the nail of truth right on the head … pointing out that God has made foolish, through His infinite mind, all the wisdom of this world. [See Isaiah 55: 8-9 for this truth.]
Hence, I – Bill Berry – have the very mind of God in Christ, especially through His written word, the Bible, as well as the enlightenment ministry of God’s Spirit, to give me answers to questions/issues which seemingly baffle the world … issues like capital punishment (see Gen. 9: 6 and Romans 13), abortion (see Deut. 30: 19 and Psalm 139: 13), and homosexuality (see Lev. 20: 13 and Romans 1: 26 – 27). As John MacArthur puts it in his devotional for this date from Strength for Today, “Knowing Christ makes the believer wiser than the world.”
But note that phrase in MacArthur’s quote … “knowing Christ.” It is true, as John says in 1st John 4: 4, that “…the One [God’s Spirit] Who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” However, if a believer, by apathy, laziness, or refusal, is ignorant of the mind of Christ in him, that one becomes weakened in his understanding of God’s ways by not “knowing Christ” to the extent he could if he developed a deep and abiding relationship with our Lord. And such inward and limited thinking will produce inward and limited behavior … and certainly much less Godly behavior than the one who diligently seeks, finds, and uses the wisdom of God. [Again, Job wrote about this in Chapter 28 of his book.]
Do you really KNOW Christ, … intimately, deeply, completely? Because the more you know Him, the more you will know His mind; and knowing His mind, as the scriptures above proclaim, allows you to have all the wisdom and understanding you need to live in this life so that you might avoid sinfulness and live in Christlikeness. Is that not worthy of anything we can do to pursue the mind of Christ in this life? [Remember the study from Job 28 on mining the mind of God. See my devotional entries for Nov. 6 -7 for this review.]
This is pretty awesome stuff [!], wouldn’t you say? And so, what I, and all believers, must do is to trust God’s truth, as I wrote yesterday about from 2nd Tim. 3: 16 – 17, and let the very mind of God lead me on God’s path of life (as it says in Prov. 3: 5 – 6.
My Prayer Today: I do trust you, Lord; and I will continue to search for Your truth. Amen
My Journal for Today: Today’s passage reminds one of the question James asked to start off this month, “Who is wise and understanding among you?” [James 3: 13] And the more that yours truly, this born-again believer, contemplates my search for Godly wisdom, the more awesome becomes the realization of what has happened to my mental approach to life since I became a converted believer in Christ.
The Apostle Paul laid out this process for Christians, beginning with today’s passage and on through 1st Cor. 1: 20 – 30 [which I’ll not print here for space considerations – but I expect you to study this passage to which I’ll link you for study]. He also related a similar exhortation to the Colossians (in Col. 2: 3) … that we Christians have “… all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Peter claimed that Christians have all we need from God (see 2nd Peter 1: 2 – 4) to live our lives in harmony with Him. And today’s passage closes with a question that hits the nail of truth right on the head … pointing out that God has made foolish, through His infinite mind, all the wisdom of this world. [See Isaiah 55: 8-9 for this truth.]
Hence, I – Bill Berry – have the very mind of God in Christ, especially through His written word, the Bible, as well as the enlightenment ministry of God’s Spirit, to give me answers to questions/issues which seemingly baffle the world … issues like capital punishment (see Gen. 9: 6 and Romans 13), abortion (see Deut. 30: 19 and Psalm 139: 13), and homosexuality (see Lev. 20: 13 and Romans 1: 26 – 27). As John MacArthur puts it in his devotional for this date from Strength for Today, “Knowing Christ makes the believer wiser than the world.”
But note that phrase in MacArthur’s quote … “knowing Christ.” It is true, as John says in 1st John 4: 4, that “…the One [God’s Spirit] Who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” However, if a believer, by apathy, laziness, or refusal, is ignorant of the mind of Christ in him, that one becomes weakened in his understanding of God’s ways by not “knowing Christ” to the extent he could if he developed a deep and abiding relationship with our Lord. And such inward and limited thinking will produce inward and limited behavior … and certainly much less Godly behavior than the one who diligently seeks, finds, and uses the wisdom of God. [Again, Job wrote about this in Chapter 28 of his book.]
Do you really KNOW Christ, … intimately, deeply, completely? Because the more you know Him, the more you will know His mind; and knowing His mind, as the scriptures above proclaim, allows you to have all the wisdom and understanding you need to live in this life so that you might avoid sinfulness and live in Christlikeness. Is that not worthy of anything we can do to pursue the mind of Christ in this life? [Remember the study from Job 28 on mining the mind of God. See my devotional entries for Nov. 6 -7 for this review.]
This is pretty awesome stuff [!], wouldn’t you say? And so, what I, and all believers, must do is to trust God’s truth, as I wrote yesterday about from 2nd Tim. 3: 16 – 17, and let the very mind of God lead me on God’s path of life (as it says in Prov. 3: 5 – 6.
My Prayer Today: I do trust you, Lord; and I will continue to search for Your truth. Amen
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
September 20, 2011 … Fulfilling God’s Law
Passage of the Day: Romans 8: 4 … in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
My Journal for Today: In Ezekiel 11: 19 – 20 God promised that He would place into all believers, His Spirit, Who would allow God’s people to fulfill the Law of God. And through Christ and His New Covenant, that promise has been fulfilled. Through my faith and repentance, God saved me. If you’re reading what I write here today, I pray God has done that for you as well; because through that salvation, we are declared righteous forever.
That is called “positional righteousness;” and because we believers now have God’s Spirit implanted into our hearts forever, we Christians now have the enabling power to turn positional righteousness into “practical righteousness,” …i.e., the everyday ability to live according to God’s Law and to avoid our sin nature. That is the message of today’s highlighted verse from the Apostle Paul to God’s people in Romans 8; and it is God’s message to all Christians of our age as well Paul delivered that truth to believers of the 1st Century. And because of God’s very practical day-to-day enabling grace, I can see God’s fruit (see Gal. 5: 22 – 23 blossom in my life, avoiding the fruit of the flesh (see Gal. 5: 19 – 21) which was so evident in my life before I came to know Christ as my Lord/Savior and surrendered to His Spirit.
Beyond God’s redemption of my soul, it is His purpose for me – and for any believer – to live a life of good works (see Eph. 2: 10 and Titus 2: 14). So, when we, as Christians, choose disobedience, which is still our free-will choice, we quench the enabling grace of God’s Spirit to give us the power to fulfill God’s Law. That is the remaining power of our deceit-ridden hearts (see Jer. 17: 9) to make flesh-driven choices rather than Spirit-led ones. To put it in John MacArthur’s words, “The believer who disobeys, especially one who persists in sin, prevents the Spirit from naturally leading [the Christian] along a path of holiness.”
It is certainly true that I’m still a sinner by nature; however, now I’m a saved and redeemed sinner [i.e., a “Saint”]; and I have God’s Spirit, giving me the power to live like the Saint whom God has made me to become in Christ. And in that truth any Christian – perhaps you – can join me to live to please God, enabled by God’s Spirit to live in righteousness every day.
My Prayer Today: To that end, Lord, all I can say is HALLELUJAH!! Amen
My Journal for Today: In Ezekiel 11: 19 – 20 God promised that He would place into all believers, His Spirit, Who would allow God’s people to fulfill the Law of God. And through Christ and His New Covenant, that promise has been fulfilled. Through my faith and repentance, God saved me. If you’re reading what I write here today, I pray God has done that for you as well; because through that salvation, we are declared righteous forever.
That is called “positional righteousness;” and because we believers now have God’s Spirit implanted into our hearts forever, we Christians now have the enabling power to turn positional righteousness into “practical righteousness,” …i.e., the everyday ability to live according to God’s Law and to avoid our sin nature. That is the message of today’s highlighted verse from the Apostle Paul to God’s people in Romans 8; and it is God’s message to all Christians of our age as well Paul delivered that truth to believers of the 1st Century. And because of God’s very practical day-to-day enabling grace, I can see God’s fruit (see Gal. 5: 22 – 23 blossom in my life, avoiding the fruit of the flesh (see Gal. 5: 19 – 21) which was so evident in my life before I came to know Christ as my Lord/Savior and surrendered to His Spirit.
Beyond God’s redemption of my soul, it is His purpose for me – and for any believer – to live a life of good works (see Eph. 2: 10 and Titus 2: 14). So, when we, as Christians, choose disobedience, which is still our free-will choice, we quench the enabling grace of God’s Spirit to give us the power to fulfill God’s Law. That is the remaining power of our deceit-ridden hearts (see Jer. 17: 9) to make flesh-driven choices rather than Spirit-led ones. To put it in John MacArthur’s words, “The believer who disobeys, especially one who persists in sin, prevents the Spirit from naturally leading [the Christian] along a path of holiness.”
It is certainly true that I’m still a sinner by nature; however, now I’m a saved and redeemed sinner [i.e., a “Saint”]; and I have God’s Spirit, giving me the power to live like the Saint whom God has made me to become in Christ. And in that truth any Christian – perhaps you – can join me to live to please God, enabled by God’s Spirit to live in righteousness every day.
My Prayer Today: To that end, Lord, all I can say is HALLELUJAH!! Amen
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