Casting out Ishmael
This is not so much a blog but a word from the Lord that I received on 11/3/2011 during an intercessor’s meeting and the analysis of that word after I had time to read the passage in Genesis 21:1-12. I believe it is a Rhema word for the Body of Christ at this time. Please take time to allow God to give you revelation into this word and how it applies to your spiritual life.
It is time for Ishmael to be cast out of the camp. Ishmael was Abraham’s attempt in the flesh to obtain the promise of God. The time has come to stop attempting to obtain the promises of God and our inheritance by the works of the flesh. They may look good, sound good and seem like the right things to do but they are man’s plans and ideas to get God to bless what we are doing and to obtain the promises.
Below is my analysis of the word, I had not read this story in quite some time and had to go back and read it again to allow the Lord to show me the things he wanted me to see.
There were two heirs in the camp, one produced by the will of the flesh and the other by the will of God. Sarah saw Ishmael mocking on the day that Isaac was being celebrated and she said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac.” Abraham was very displeased with this but God told him to listen to his wife. I believe it is time, collectively and individually, that we begin to identify those things that are Ishmaels in our camp and to put them out, no matter how difficult that is to us. There cannot be competing heirs in the Kingdom of God! Only that which has been produced by the Spirit will inherit the things of the Kingdom.
We all have Ishmaels in our lives because we have all attempted things in the flesh that should have waited on the Spirit. Again, they may look and sound very noble and receive praise from men but they are, in fact, our own endeavors and not something initiated by the Spirit. God is calling us in these days to shed our human understanding of how things work and to participate in what His Holy Spirit is doing at this time. And not only that but to cast out the things which our flesh has produced.
This is a very preliminary and condensed version of what I think God is saying here.
Blessings,
Jeff
Sin Conscious?
The way we relate to God is determined by our perception of His acceptance of us. Our perception of acceptance is determined by our understanding of how God views us. Our understanding of how God views us is determined by the completeness of our knowledge and revelation of how God has dealt with our sin. When knowledge is combined with a revelation from the Holy Spirit of the comprehensiveness, the all encompassing totality of the work of the cross on our behalf, we will come to understand that our sin has been eliminated from the mind of God and we can now “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of our faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.” (Heb. 10:22)
Too often we are hindered in our relationship to God by our own conscience. We think that because of our past sins we are unworthy of God’s complete acceptance, that it isn’t possible to experience Him on this level of “full assurance” because we carry with us the guilt of past sin.
We have a conscience and we experience guilt in order to identify what is right and wrong, once the wrong has been righted we should no longer have guilt except that we have an enemy that is an “accuser” and he will accuse us to God and to ourselves. He uses guilt to interfere with our relationship to God. The law is Satan’s weapon of choice because if he can get us focused on rules and regulations and the guilt that goes with them we are no longer a threat. We become more sin conscious than God conscious!
What is our conscience? The Holy Spirit is not our conscience, although they can work together, the Holy Spirit always knows what is right. Our conscience is like a built in judge that considers what we understand to be right or wrong and makes a decision accordingly. Our conscience doesn’t make the rules, it only interprets them and urges us to do what is right. Sadly, our conscience is not the final decision maker, our God given self will does that. Our will can choose to override the conscience and decide to do something totally contrary to what we know to be right. That’s where the problem lies because when we go against our own conscience, not only are we probably acting against our overall best self interest but our conscience then kicks in the quilt feelings to cause us to rectify the situation. Guilt, if not dealt with, is a very powerful emotion that can to cause problems with our feelings of self worth and our value as a human being. This in turn leads to problems with relationships, especially our relationship to God.
Thank God that he has provided a solution to this problem of a guilty or “evil” conscience! Under the Old covenant the Jews were required to offer animal sacrifices to atone for their sins. God gave Moses exact guidelines as to what animals were to be used and how the sacrifice was to be carried out. There were different sacrifices for different offenses but once each year, on what the Jews call the Day of Atonement, the high priest entered the Holy of Holies to offer a sacrifice for himself and all of Israel for the sins committed the past year. In chapter nine the writer of Hebrews illustrates how this special sacrifice was symbolic of the sacrifice that Jesus made of His own body, not only for Israel, but for the whole human race. Just as any symbol doesn’t carry the same effectiveness of the thing it symbolizes, the sacrifices under the old covenant didn’t have the same effectiveness as the one sacrifice they symbolized.
Hebrews 9:13-14
13 For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, 14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Wow! Does that mean that not only does the sin get taken care of but even the guilty feelings should go away? Absolutely! The sacrifice that Jesus made is so complete that it even takes away the guilt from our conscience, but only if we have a full knowledge of what he has done. That’s how good God is, not only does he want to have a relationship with you but he has removed every barrier to that relationship.
If there is any doubt about Jesus getting rid of our guilty feelings the writer of Hebrews says it again just a few verses later.
Hebrews 10:1-2
1 For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. 2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.
No more consciousness of sin? Do we really fully grasp what that means? To be conscious means to be awake and aware, this is saying that not only does the guilt go away but we should not even be aware that the sin was there. The law, legalism, continually reminds us of how depraved we are and as long as we use rules and regulations to guide our behavior we will continuously be reminded of our lack of ability to keep the law. We will live under the guilt of the law all the time and even things we haven’t done yet will hinder us because we are so sin conscious that we are afraid of what we might do next!
Am I saying that we should just do what we want and not worry about it? Absolutely not! Sin is devastating to our lives and to those around us, it brings us to ruin and nullifies the purposes of God in our lives. So, if we shouldn’t be guided by the law but we shouldn’t sin, what are we supposed to do? Good question, I’m glad I asked! God has given us his Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us into what is right, he will never lead us astray and while the law has no power to change us, the Holy Spirit fills us with power.
Romans 8:13-14
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
We have to address the issue of sin in our lives through the Holy Spirit and not by keeping rules. Paul says that only by the Spirit are we able to deal with the problems caused by our flesh! When our conscience is freed up from having to constantly make determinations of right and wrong based on the law we can focus on the goodness of God and our relationship to him without having to wonder if we are in good standing with him today. At this point, even how we deal with sin becomes a part of our worship because we are interacting with the Holy Spirit of God!
When we allow guilt from our past or future to interfere with our present lives were are in effect saying that what Jesus did wasn’t enough to do the job. His sacrifice wasn’t enough and I have to still feel guilty for what I’ve done and if I’m still guilty then God and others won’t accept me. That’s why His sacrifice under the new covenant went way past the external observances under the old and wiped out our sin totally, even cleansing our consciences from sin!
Blessings,
Jeff Martin
Grace and Holiness
Do grace and holiness really go together? I mean, if God is constantly having to give you grace, how can you be holy, if you need grace then you must have done something wrong, right? If you were holy then you wouldn’t need grace……would you? These terms seem like a contradiction because our understanding of them is usually based on a religious mindset.
In the English language we use the word “grace” in a very different manner than New Testament grace, which is the Greek word “charis”. When we hear the word we think of a grace period where our negligence is overlooked for a time and we are not charged the penalty of our transgression. In religious terms grace has come to mean being able to transgress the laws of God without penalty, that because we are under grace we will not suffer the consequences of our actions. God just overlooks our sin and we can go on our merry way. This understanding of grace has led to doctrines that frown upon grace or at least limit it because it is seen as a license to sin.
We are not in a grace period, where God overlooks our sin until we can get it all together, but we are in a dispensation of grace. Dispensation is defined as; an exemption from a set of rules or usual requirements. What does that mean? It means, you can’t break the law if you are not under it!!! There is a big difference in being given amnesty and being exempt from the law altogether. Under amnesty you are guilty but pardoned, being exempt means there was never a transgression in the first place!
Romans 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
“Dominion over” comes from a Greek word that means lordship. In other words, do you want to be under the lordship of sin because you choose to be under the law or do you want to be under the lordship of Jesus Christ and under grace? Which one makes a better master, sin or Jesus? One or the other is going to be calling the shots and it is up to each one of us to make a choice.
There are some very religious people who have chosen to place themselves under the law, thinking they are submitting to Jesus when in reality they are submitting to the dominion of sin. The law has no power to change you, it only identifies wrong behavior and motivates by fear of punishment. If you are guilty of breaking the law you are condemned to receive the penalty for breaking it. In contrast, grace is by definition, the divine influence on the heart and it’s reflection in one’s life. Grace leads you into right behavior through a motivation of love! There is no condemnation under grace.
You see, the law has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death and replaced with the grace of God, which is divine enablement to fulfill the requirements of God without the threat of punishment as the motivating factor. In 2 Corinthians 3 Paul calls the law, and specifically the ten commandments, the ministry of death and the ministry of condemnation. If you are in Christ you are not under the law but under grace. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!” (Romans 8:1)
Now we are beginning to see how you can be under grace and be holy at the same time.
Matthew 5:20
20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Does that sound like a grace statement? I mean, the scribes were charged with making copies of the law by hand, writing each letter one at a time. They knew every letter and punctuation mark in the first five books of the bible by heart! The Pharisees were the lawyers of their day, they had studied the law and every commentary on the law until they could quote it forwards and backwards, they knew the law! To them, righteousness meant keeping the law without fail. They even had laws on how to keep the laws, their whole life revolved around the Law of Moses.
Now Jesus comes along and makes a statement like verse 20. It sounds like he is saying that to get into heaven we have to do a better job at keeping the law than the scribes and Pharisees. Impossible! How could Jesus expect us to do that? The issue here is that Jesus is talking about a different kind of righteousness, one that exceeds theirs. Exceeds means to go far over and above, super abundantly. The kind of righteousness he is talking about is so far above what comes from keeping a bunch of rules that you really can’t even compare the two, you have to contrast them like light and dark. If you get them confused you end up under the dominion of sin.
So what is Jesus saying here and how does he expect us to achieve that kind of righteousness? The answer is, he doesn’t! The kind of righteousness that he is talking about, the kind that super abundantly exceeds the kind that comes from the law is the righteousness of God! Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and HIS righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Nobody achieves that kind of righteousness, they receive it by faith.
Paul, in contrasting his pedigree as a Pharisee and his position of being in Christ makes this statement in Philippians 3:7-9
7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.
Last week I was talking about trusting in grace, this is one element of that, we cannot trust in our own ability to acquire righteousness. And why would we want to when we can receive God’s by faith? In Romans 10:3 Paul says that the because the Pharisees were ignorant of God’s righteousness and tried to achieve their own, they have actually rejected the righteousness of God. Why would anybody refuse what God is willing to give them in favor of something they can’t attain?
In 1Peter 1:15, immediately after saying that we should put all our eggs in the basket of grace, Peter tells us to be holy, to not be conformed to our our former pursuits. He says that we should be holy because God is holy. Holiness is an outflow of righteousness, it means to be blameless and pure. We have already seen that when we are under grace that we are blameless concerning the law because we are not under it’s requirements. Therefore, our holiness is also something that is given by God and received by faith. We are His holy people because Jesus paid the price for our holiness and our conduct should reflect the righteousness and holiness that God has imputed to us through faith.
If sin is a major issue in your life, maybe you are under the dominion of it instead of being under the dominion of grace. You will gravitate towards the thing you focus on the most. If that “thing” is trying to keep a set of rules you will invariably break them! In 1 Corinthians 15:56 Paul says that the strength of sin is the law! It is a divine paradox that sin would be strengthened by the very thing that says don’t do it. On the other hand, if you focus on the goodness and grace of God then you will automatically begin to operate out of His goodness and even the need for the law becomes obsolete.
In Christ and under grace you are holy, blameless and above reproach in the sight of God. Grace and holiness go together like a hand in a glove. Holiness should be the outflow of the grace that is upon your life!
If you think that because you are under grace that you can sin and get away with it, that grace is a license to sin, you are not under grace but under deception! Satan has fooled you into thinking that God doesn’t care about your behavior because He loves you so much. Nothing could be further from the truth, He cares so much that He sent Jesus to fulfill the law on our behalf and then filled us with His grace so that we are no longer under the dominion of sin. We are now free and empowered to live the life that God has prepared for us!
Blessings,
Jeff
Trust in Grace!
What are your expectations for your life? Where do they come from and how do you expect to accomplish them? God has a plan and He has provided a means to help you achieve the goals He has placed within you.
1 Peter 1:13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
I recommend that you read the previous 12 verses but up to this point Peter has been talking about our salvation through Jesus Christ and how the prophets had been fascinated by what God was going to do and tried to figure it all out. It says they prophesied about the grace that would come to us. Peter even says “things the angels desired to look into”. All of God’s creation had been intrigued by how God was going to pull this off! How was he going to bring salvation to a people who can’t get anything right? We’ve screwed up everything God ever started! But he had something up his sleeve, he said “I’m going to do it with grace! I’m going to do it for them so that the only way they can screw it up is if they try to do it themselves!” God probably doesn’t say “screw up” but you understand what I mean.
Now I want to break verse 13 down for you and take a look at some of the word meanings from the original Greek language.
Loins, the waist area, it speaks of what we reproduce of ourselves. The mind has to do with what we think about and how we go about arriving at decisions. So to gird up the loins of your mind means that we have to be very careful and protect our thought processes. We need to have a mindset that is anchored in the truth of the word. Otherwise, we will be producing or reproducing the lies of the enemy. The focus of our thought life determines what type of seed we are planting. Abraham produced Ishmael because he allowed his mind to be taken off the promise of God and attempted to make it happen by listening to his wife’s reasoning. We have to be very intentional about what we allow to occupy out thoughts!
That includes putting our complete trust in the grace that God has extended to us by revealing Jesus Christ to us through the Holy Spirit! Trusting in anything else other than the grace of God produces religion and the letter of the law which produces death!
Be sober! This is not about getting the “warm fuzzies” or “tingly all over”, it is about a serious, intentional thought process that will produce the life of God in us! You can run all over the country to get that next spiritual fix from wherever God is moving or you can have him move in your own life. There is nothing wrong with going where the Holy Spirit is moving but some people chase the experience instead of pursuing His presence.
“Rest your hope fully upon the grace” let’s break this phrase down from the Greek, the word rest is not there, I guess they pull that from what is implied in the word “upon” but it has more to do with placing than resting. Hope means expectation, confidence, trust. Then the word fully means completely, without wavering to the end. Now, the word upon. This is an interesting little word, it literally means to superimpose, to place one thing on top of another so that both are still evident!
If you superimpose a photograph you place one image on top of another so that it appears to be one image. In the days of Jesus it would have been more in the form of an image on a coin. They would take a coin and place a die with an image on top of the coin and when it was struck the image would appear, superimposed, on the coin.
Finally the word grace, in the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and Dictionary you will find this definition for the word charis, which is the Greek word for grace- the divine influence on the heart and it’s reflection in the life! I thought it was unmerited favor, absolutely! I thought it was a gift, yes! In fact the word charisma and charismatic come from this word for grace but more than anything it is God moving upon the heart of man to see him line up with the plans and purposes that God has in store for him!
Our expectation of salvation should be superimposed on top of this grace so that our expectations and God’s grace look like the same thing! And we need to maintain that image completely without wavering to the end. How you finish is much more important than how you start. Don’t allow the enemy to get you sidetracked by past mistakes.
If your hope of salvation and the grace of God don’t look like the same thing, then you are trusting in yourself and not God! As much as we Christians claim that we stand on grace, we still, deep in our hearts, think that we have to do something for our salvation. And we induce that in each other because we don’t want anyone to be apathetic, we place guilt on people to get them involved or to do the right thing when all that is needed is a better understanding of the grace that is being delivered to us as Christ is revealed through the Holy Spirit.
I will probably state this every time I talk about the grace of God but grace is an empowering, enabling force that God uses to transform and equip his people. None of us deserve it but it is offered to all. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” He understood that it was grace that motivated him and enabled him to do what God had called him to do. He knew that he wasn’t capable of what God asked but he superimposed his trust over the grace of God to the point that it appeared that Paul was doing it when it was God all along!
I caught the end of a live message by John Bevere, he was talking about how the church is turning to the world for ideas to draw people in when we should be turning to the grace of God because it empowers us to be better equipped than anyone else that doesn’t have a relationship with Jesus. They should be copying us, not the other way around. I wanted to jump up and cheer!
John said that English and writing were his WORST subjects in school, his teachers only passed him to move him along to the next person. When God told him to write a book he said, “you have the wrong guy, I can’t write anything.” but he submitted and allowed the grace of God to work through him and once he got started, he said he couldn’t keep up with what God was showing him. Now he has written 14 books that are read and translated all over the world.
We, as Christians, need to come to the understanding that it is the grace of God that enables us to carry out the plans that God has for us and that those plans are probably above our own ability! Only by superimposing our expectations over what God is doing in our hearts and doing it His way all the way through can we accomplish the plans that He has for us. If we mess up there is grace. If we go astray, there is grace but it is not there to coddle us, rather to empower us to rise above our weaknesses.
Blessings,
Jeff
Who am I? Part 2
I’m going to make another run at this. Last time I didn’t get into scripture much but I felt those things needed to be said and it is very pertinent to the topic of identity. All of us spend a good portion of our adolescent and adult lives trying to figure out who we really are and listening and comparing ourselves to all the wrong people. It is a search that some, if not most people never accomplish. I contend that almost all of us live far below our God given abilities and the intended purposes that we were created to fulfill. Every single person on this earth is here because God created them and placed them here to for a purpose. You are the answer to someone else’s prayer, You have something they need but if you never understand who God has made you to be, you and others will miss out on a great blessing.
Since God is the one who created us, who better to seek out our identity from than the One who designed us. We are all born into a fallen state and not what God intended for us from the beginning, so we are in need of a transformation. While fallen man is capable of tremendous things because of the giftings and talents that God placed there, he is not capable of realizing his true identity and potential because that is only found through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
2 Cor. 5:17 says that we are a new creation in Christ, the old has passed away and ALL things are new, this is the “born again” experience that Christians talk about when people get saved. We are beings that have a spirit, soul and body, the spirit is the part of us that is in need of being re-created, it is the part of us that communicates with God. The soul and body can never come into line with God’s purposes until the spirit man is renewed. Once this transformation has take place, the possibility is then open to learn from God exactly who He made you to be.
Colossians 3:1-4
1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
This is a contrast Paul has been developing in ch 2, the earthly wisdom influenced by the demonic and man’s philosophy, i.e. religion, versus true wisdom which comes from above. Satan doesn’t mind you getting religion because there is no real power in religion. If he can tangle up your thoughts with performance for approval and acceptance then he can keep you distracted from where the real power is located—-in an understanding of who you are in and through Jesus Christ! This is why Paul says we should set our minds, our thoughts, on things above, not about how great heaven is but concentrate on seeing things through a “Christ” mindset because he sees us very differently than we see ourselves. He sees us according to our new nature and the way He created us for the kingdom of God. We need to ask God to help us see ourselves and others the same way He sees us.
Having our minds set on things above is not pining away for the sweet by-and-by but but having a kingdom mindset, a God perspective, where we see people and circumstances the way He does. This is where faith and a knowledge of God’s word comes in because with our natural eye and understanding there are times when it looks hopeless. The wisdom of man will tell you to trust what you can see but the wisdom of God will tell you to trust what God has already said.
You have to understand that the old you is dead and the new you is hidden together with Christ in God. You don’t even know who you are unless you understand who God has made you to be in Christ! Your true life, your true identity is only found through Jesus. The world has lied to you about who you are but when you set your thoughts on the realities of God’s truth you find out who He says you are. You need to behold yourself in the mirror of God’s word.
James 1:22-25
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
The perfect law of liberty is not the written law of rules and regulations, it doesn’t reveal all your ugliness and flaws but it is a reflection of Jesus Christ himself and when we continue to look into it and imitate what we see there, we are changed into the image we are beholding, we are transformed from glory to glory because what we see is also a reflection of who God created us to be. It is our life that is hidden in Christ and when that life in Christ is manifested, our true nature, our true identity, will be manifested together with him in the glory that accompanies the Son of God.
Like everything else that is beneficial and productive, we have to be intentional about the way we see things. It is so easy to revert back to a natural perspective and begin to view ourselves and our circumstances according to what others say or think instead of a kingdom mindset. That’s the person who forgets what kind of man he is, the reality is there but when unobserved it fades into all the other voices shouting for our attention and becomes ineffective in changing our life or anyone else’s.
Please be intentional about beholding yourself in the truth of who God says you are and let the reflection on Christ transform you from glory to glory.
Blessings,
Jeff Martin
Who am I?
Our identity is usually developed from the time we are small children by a variety of influences, from what our parents say to us to our social-economic background, from our ethnic origin and culture to society in general. We have every type of media displaying how we should look, dress and behave in order to be accepted. How we fit into the expectations of others usually determines how we view ourselves and it is because we are social creatures that the opinion of others is so important to us, everybody wants to fit in!
The biggest problem with this approach to identity is that it is based on our perception of what others think about us. Did we fit the mold of what is expected of us or are we accepted by the people who are supposed to be “cool”? That can change from one day to the next, one moment your in, the next your out. It is determined by how we are accepted by others.
Here’s the thing, perception has no basis in the truth! It does not take into account your value as a human being, as someone who has been created by and in the image of a loving God. It does not take into account the individual gifting and purpose that He has placed within each person. Worst of all, perception gives power to others to define you. Everybody wants to be liked, everybody wants to be accepted and that should happen but you cannot allow what other people think to define who you are because you will operate out of that perception. You will make life changing decisions based on lies.
I recently stumbled onto a movie called “That’s What I Am” with Ed Harris, I had never even heard of the movie but it was a poignant story about those very tough middle school years and dealing with acceptance and perception. It revolved around three people, the main character Andy, a “normal” eighth grader, Stanley or “big G” an outcast who is a very tall boy with red hair, a large head and even larger ears and Mr. Simon, their single, mid 50’s literature teacher, who is “perceived” to be a homosexual. The story is set in the late sixties when being labeled as a “homo” meant the end of your career.
I won’t go into details but I think the movie dealt very well with identity and the acceptance and perception that goes along with forming it. In my estimation Stanley turns out to be the hero of the movie because he refuses to be defined by others. Mr. Simon handles the accusation of being gay with honor and dignity and Andy turns out to be a kid who does the right thing but it is because Mr. Simon has the ability to see potential in people and affirm them in that potential.
I am convinced that regardless of what social-liberals say, we can be tolerant and remain true to our moral convictions. We can live and work in a world that is sometimes very contrary to what we believe. God has not called us to be a voice of condemnation but a voice of hope, not to be conformed to the society around us but to be salt and light. We seldom quote John 3:17 but it says that God did not send his son into the the world to condemn it but to save it.
If you know Jesus, your identity should come from an understanding that you are a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) and that he is the one that defines you and not what others think. I have a lot to say about that and intended to do so in this article but it just went another direction. I will cover that next week.
In the mean time, please be very aware that a lot of people don’t have that understanding yet and they view themselves according to what we say to them or about them, especially young people. Look for potential in people, speak to those gifts that lay hidden beneath the surface and affirm their worth. If you want to make a difference in people’s lives find something good in them and affirm them in it. I’m speaking to myself most of all because it doesn’t come natural for me, it takes a continual conscience effort on my part and too often I don’t do it. I’ll try harder if you will.
Blessings,
Jeff
Walking in the flesh?
In church circles, when you hear the term “walking in the flesh” it usually means that someone has been involved in activity that is considered to be sin. This is a religious term, taken from the New Testament, that people outside of certain circles may not be familiar with but most understand it to mean immoral acts. That’s not inaccurate but I want you to consider the possibility that there are very religious people that consider themselves to be above reproach that are “walking in the flesh” just as much as those who are involved in sin. In fact, maybe more so because they think that they have it all together because they obey all the rules!
Most christians say they believe that we are saved by grace through faith, (Eph 2:8) but then turn around and begin working for their salvation. They walk the isle, say a prayer, join a church and they are immediately expected to be model citizens in every way. They are expected to follow a set of rules, depending on your denomination they are different, but the rules are very important. Those who have been keeping the rules for a long time are deacons and elders or pastors, they have it all together because according to the rules they are good people.
What I want you to consider is that keeping rules (the law in the bible) doesn’t necessarily make you a good person and it doesn’t purchase you a ticket to heaven. As christians we say we believe that but then we get out our list of rules and start comparing ourselves and others to the list. Some of the meanest people on earth can look pretty good when compared to the list, some of the kindest people fail miserably. So what good are the rules? They do have their place and I am not advocating anarchy in the church but it comes down to: What do you put your trust in to get into heaven?
(if you read my last article on “Too Much Grace?” it explains how we get to where we need to be morally without the list)
I am not going to go into a lengthy exposition but we know from the words of Jesus and the apostles that without righteousness we cannot set one foot into heaven. We equate righteousness with keeping the rules, so that’s what we try to do. This is nothing new, it’s been going on for thousands of years. What we fail to realize is that there are two kinds of righteousness; our own righteousness that comes from keeping the law and God’s righteousness, which we receive by faith.
This brings me to the “walking in the flesh” that I started with. I suggest that walking in the flesh has just as much to do with our own attempt at righteousness as it does with immoral behavior. You can keep every law in the book except one and according to God you are disqualified. Therefore, any attempt at righteousness by keeping rules is an attempt to gain it by the works of our flesh and it is an exercise in futility. Look what Paul said in Romans 8:3-5
3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh , God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh , on account of sin : He condemned sin in the flesh , 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit . 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh , but those who live according to the Spirit , the things of the Spirit .
Notice that verse 4 says that the righteousness of the law will be fulfilled in those who do not walk according to the flesh. He just said that our flesh can’t keep the law so when we try to acquire righteousness on our own it is a work of the flesh! The Holy Spirit is the one who can lead us into right behavior, the law brings only condemnation and death, as Paul goes on to say later in the chapter.
Not only is keeping the law an exercise in futility, but we refuse the righteousness that God has provided for us. Paul explains this perfectly in Romans 9:30-10:4
30 What shall we say then ? That Gentiles , who did not pursue righteousness , have attained to righteousness , even the righteousness of faith ; 31 but Israel , pursuing the law of righteousness , has not attained to the law of righteousness . 32 Why ? Because they did not seek it by faith , but as it were, by the works of the law . For they stumbled at that stumbling stone . 33 As it is written : “ Behold , I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense , And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame .” Ch. 10: 1 Brethren , my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved . 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God , but not according to knowledge . 3 For they being ignorant of God ‘s righteousness , and seeking to establish their own righteousness , have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Pursuing righteousness through keeping rules is the same thing as refusing the righteousness of God, the righteousness of faith as Paul calls it. It’s like telling God “I don’t need what you provided through your son’s death burial and resurrection, I can do it on my own.” We discount Jesus’ sacrifice for us in favor of our own efforts and hope and pray that we do every thing right! Some people become very self righteous and condemn those who aren’t doing as good as they are. These are the Pharisees that Jesus openly rebuked over and over because they put all their trust in the Law of Moses, he said ” You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.”( John 5:39-4o) These especially are the people who are walking in the flesh even though it appears that they are doing everything right.
Paul preached the gospel on the foundation that we receive everything through faith, even our righteousness. He used the Old Testament patriarch Abraham to prove his point, he said “Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness”, which he took from Gen. 15:6. Accounted is an accounting term that means to credit to your account and what it means to us is that God counts faith as righteousness. It doesn’t mean faith is close to righteousness or similar to righteousness, it means FAITH=RIGHTEOUSNESS, it is the same thing. So, to receive the righteousness of God, we have to believe Him, we have to have faith in the work of the cross alone to save us and bring us into right standing with God.
Jesus said “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness”, not your own because that would be walking in the flesh.
Blessings,
Jeff Martin
Too Much Grace?
Most people see grace as God overlooking our bad behavior and giving us a pass just because he loves us so much. They think he pats us on the head and says “It’s ok, I forgive you, now run along and play but try to be good.” God forgives our sin but he does not overlook our willful disobedience. Those who understand grace in this way deny the power of the cross to change both our heart and our behavior! This is a false grace that lulls people into a false security and is the source of many Christians failure to overcome weaknesses of the flesh.
It is also the source of a doctrine that says, “Too much grace leads into sin, you have to have a balance of grace and the law. This too is false because Paul says “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” (Rom 10:14) If you want to be under the law you have to keep all of it, every little part or you won’t make it. That is legalism! He also said that “The letter(law) kills but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Cor. 3:6) If you choose to live your life by trying to keep the law in order to be good, you are already under condemnation because you break the law every day in one way or another. We HAVE to have the grace of God if we are going to make it. YOU CANNOT HAVE TOO MUCH GRACE! You just need to understand what grace does in our lives.
Titus 2:11& 12 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.
Notice that grace does two things, it brings salvation to all men and it teaches us. Why do we need anything else? If grace delivers salvation to our doorstep and then teaches us how to live our lives, why would we ever want to say that too much grace is not good or that because of grace we can do what we want? We don’t need a balance, grace is perfect just the way it is, exactly as God planned it.
Grace brings salvation to us because it does overlook our weaknesses. Graces says “I’m going to love you and forgive you regardless of all your many faults and I accept you as you are right now!” But grace also says “Ok, I accept you and love you, now let’s start to work on some stuff. Let me teach you how to live.”
Paul is the best example of the power of grace in the whole New Testament. He gave credit to grace alone for the things that God accomplished in and through him. He understood that grace was the source of his salvation and the empowerment to overcome every weakness in order to have God’s will accomplished in his life.
1Cor. 15:9 & 10 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God . But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
I thank God that Paul allowed himself to be instructed by grace because he was the apostle to the Gentiles and God used him to show us Gentiles how we can receive salvation apart from Jewish law.
God has something for each and every one of us to do, just like he did for Paul, and if we will allow grace to teach us and the Holy Spirit to lead us we will then accomplish the will of God for our life.
Blessings,
Jeff Martin
stronggrace.com 