Spiritual Warfare: A Question of Authority

August 18, 2017 by Judy

Take the Challenge

So far, in our efforts to become more spiritually fit, we have successfully worked our way through three of the four levels of exercise in our Workout Program; where, at…

Level 1, we covered the basics of our Faith; learning how, through Salvation, we are Redeemed from Sin and Death, and adopted as children into the Family of God.

Level 2, we dealt with Sanctification; or, the life-long training process by which the Holy Spirit transforms us from the Sinners we once were into Holy Sons and Daughters of God.

Level 3, we learned about Service; or, the Work of God that we, as His Children—the Church—have been commissioned to carry out. It was here that we were introduced to the concept that…

…as the Corporate Body of Christ, we are to reach out to those in the world around us, bringing them the good news of God’s Love and Salvation;
…as the Corporate Soul of Christ, we are to relate as Family to those who are already a part of God’s Family; and,
…as the Corporate Spirit of Christ, we are to serve as the Army of Spiritual Warriors charged with the task of liberating those still held in captivity by Satan, and taking his territory captive for the Kingdom of God.

Since this last matter deals with Spiritual Warfare, something which we have only recently touched upon, we will make its study the objective of this fourth and final Level of Exercise in our Program—a Program which, when completed, will have helped us…

Define our Position, as a Child of God;
Refine our Person, as a Child of God;
Outline our Purpose, as a Child of God; and,
Underline our Power, as a Child of God.

It is through this progressive pattern of growth—from Position to Person to Purpose to Power—that we have advanced from our original state of spiritual infancy to God’s more highly desired state of spiritual maturity, becoming better equipped along the way for our eternal destiny with Jesus Christ.

It’s Certainly Not Biblical

What is this destiny for which we, as the Children of God, are presently being equipped? Contrary to one of the more popular conceptions of what life will be like in the hereafter, we will not be floating around on a cloud, with a crown on our heads and nothing better to do than strum on our harps for all eternity. Not only is this a perfectly wasteful—not to mention boring—way to spend one’s everlasting life, but it in no way compensates us for all of the hardships we suffered through during our earthly sojourns. And, it certainly doesn’t call for any specialized equipping on our parts to prepare for it.

On the other hand, the destiny that God has planned for us is a gloriously challenging one. In keeping with His divinely ordained principles of Sowing and Reaping, it is one that will provide us with levels of rewards commensurate with the levels of faithfulness we have demonstrated during our times of training on the earth, and elevate us to positions of authority in the coming Kingdom of God. From these positions, we will exercise the Dominion originally gifted to us by God, lost to us as a result of the Fall, and restored to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Destined for Dominion, Subjected to Slavery

We first learned about this matter of Dominion during one of our visits to the story of Adam and Eve. For, it was there that, upon his creation, Man—as both Male and Female—was commanded by God to fill the earth with people, and to rule over everything in it. This Right to Rule, however, was lost when Adam, as a result of his disobedience to God, forfeited his Position of Power—a position which Satan immediately claimed as his own.

In his classic book, Destined for the Throne, the late Paul Billheimer explains some of the legal issues involved in this transfer of power…

The entire universe is governed by law…God’s grant of authority and dominion over the earth to man was a bona-fide gift. This authority and dominion became legally his. What he did with it was his own responsibility. If, so to speak, he ‘fumbled the ball’ and lost it, God could not lawfully step in and repossess it for him.[1]

We know from Romans 6:16 that…

…if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.

Therefore, when Adam chose to obey Satan instead of God, he became Satan’s slave. And…

As a slave of Satan, Adam lost all of his legal rights, not only to his person but also to his domain. This gave Satan legal authority to rule over man and the earth. If Satan’s dominion was to be revoked, a way had to be found to redeem fallen man and recover his lost authority without violating universal principles of justice.

No angel could enter the contest because these legal rights were never his. Thus a member of Adam’s race had to be found who could qualify to enter suit in universal court and wrest Adam’s lost heritage and dominion from Satan. The government of the earth had been given to man. It was lost by man. It could be legally recovered only by a man.[2]

But where was such a man to be found? To qualify for the task at hand, he would have to be a full-fledged human being; and yet, because Adam and all those who would eventually descend from him had become the slaves of Satan, he would have to be sinless in order to be free from Satan’s control…

To the human mind the situation was hopeless, but God found a way. ‘When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons’ (Gal. 4:4). God solved the problem by the Incarnation.

Since Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, the divine nature was present in Him. Because he was sinless, Satan had no claim upon Him. But because He was ‘made of a woman,’ He was an authentic human being and could therefore qualify as a bona-fide member of the human race to enter the legal fight to reclaim Adam’s lost estate.[3]

He Has Made Us More than Conquerors

The Spiritual Battle to the Cross

Although I can’t think of anyone who would willingly sign up for a task like this, the spiritual battle to win back our freedom that Jesus freely committed Himself to was one that was repeatedly characterized by humiliation, rejection, opposition, and affliction; which, when you put them all together, add up to a whole lot of suffering.

Just think of the humiliation involved when…

…Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2: 5-8).

Or, the rejection He must have experienced when…

His family…went out to seize him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind (Mark 3:21).
The people in His hometown said, ‘Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him (Mark 6: 2-3).
John the Baptist sent messengers to Jesus, asking, ‘Are you [sure] you are the one [the Messiah] who is to come, or shall we look for another?’ (Matt. 11:3)
Upon hearing some of Jesus’ hard sayings, ‘…many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.’ (John 6:66)

As for opposition, Jesus had that in abundance; for, even as a child, when He was perceived to be a contender for his throne, King Herod tried to have Him killed. And later, during His earthly ministry, He found Himself constantly at odds with all factions of Jewish society…

With the Sadducees, because He threatened their economic and political power;
With the Pharisees, because they considered Jesus a law-breaker, and His teachings overturned their religious traditions;
With the Essenes, the ascetics of the day, who considered Jesus too worldly because He socialized with “sinners;”
With the Zealots, or the anarchists of the day, because Jesus preached a message of love instead of rebellion; and,
With the people who, in their apathy, did not want to be confronted with change.

And, when it came to affliction, no one has ever endured more. Of Him, it was said that…

…he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? (Is. 53: 2-8)

And, if all this wasn’t enough, from the time of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry until the moment when He drew His final breath, Satan, in an effort to take Him captive through sin just like the first Adam, was constantly working to trip Him up…

The fallen Lucifer, once the Light Bearer, the guardian of the throne of God, the highest of all pre-Adamic created beings, marshaled all of the available resources of the underworld in an effort to break down the allegiance of the God-man to His heavenly Father. One weakness revealed, one thought of rebellion or self will entertained, and all of Jesus’ efforts to repossess the world and its enslaved race from the usurping god of the world would be lost.[4]

But, Praise God, in spite of all this pressure, Jesus didn’t give in; for…

When Jesus died without failing in the smallest detail, His death resulted not only in defeating Satan’s purpose to obtain a claim upon Him—it also canceled all of Satan’s legal claim upon the earth and the whole human race…

Therefore, since Calvary, Satan has absolutely no rights or claims upon anyone or anything. Whatever authority he carried with him on his banishment from heaven passed into the hands of the new Man along with the lost heritage of Adam…[5]

So We Can Rule and Reign with Him Throughout Eternity

Our Authority Restored

It is this authority that Jesus restored to His disciples; the same authority…

…to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall injure you (Luke 10:19)…

…that Jesus delegated to the seventy-two He sent out to proclaim the Kingdom of God—and, it is the same authority that we possess today. For…

As individuals we have authority over all the combined powers of the enemy. This is an incredible, wonderful truth. Everything at Satan’s disposal—every demon, every coven, every cult and religion, every work, and every influence—is subject to the authority given to us by Jesus.

When Jesus rose from the dead after ripping the usurped authority from Satan’s hands, He did not immediately go to heaven. He stopped off to see the eleven remaining disciples…Jesus handed to them the authority He had taken from Satan. The authority legally changed hands once more and belonged to man again.[6]

This truth is what we need to keep at the forefront of our thinking as we approach our upcoming exercises in Spiritual Warfare—because our success in any battle will be totally dependent upon our acknowledgement of the One who has already won the victory. Satan and his demons certainly know who it is; for, it was Jesus who, after overcoming every form of Spiritual Warfare in His life–on the Cross and through His resurrection…

…disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them (Colossians 2:15).

Even so, Satan and his legions continue to fight on, using our ignorance of the authority in Christ as one of their chief means of success. Let’s determine not to give them that critical edge over us; always bearing in mind that, in whatever situation we may find ourselves, the One who won the war for us has already been there on our behalf…

…For, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15).

Therefore…let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. (Hebrews 12:1-4)

The War Has Already Been Won for Us by Jesus

In our next exercise, we will learn more about the destiny for which we are being prepared.

The Gaither Vocal Band reminds us of who we are in “On the Authority”…

[1] Paul E. Billheimer, Destined for the Throne (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, 1975), 73.

[2] Billheimer, Destined, 73-74.

[3] Billheimer, Destined, 74.

[4] Billheimer, Destined, 76.

[5] Billheimer, Destined, 79-80.

[6] Dean Sherman, Spiritual Warfare for Every Christian (Seattle, Washington: YWAM Publishing, 1990), 130-131.

Service: Women and the Work of God, Part 2

July 25, 2017 by Judy

It’s Way Past Time!

As promised at the end of our last workout session, we are back to finish what we started in our exercise on Service: Women and the Work of God. There, in Part One, in pursuit of a better understanding of the role God intends for Women to play in the Service of His Kingdom, we once again went back to the story of Adam and Eve, looking at it to determine…

God’s Purposes for the Sexes;
God’s Punishment of the Sexes; and,
God’s Promise to the Sexes.

As a result, we discovered that in His quest for a Family to love, God created Man as a Spirit Being, a Spirit which He then placed in the two houses He called Male and Female. As a Spirit, Man could relate to God and in the physical houses of Male and Female, he could (re)produce the Family that God has always desired. We also learned that because he was created first, the Man was placed in the Position of Head over God’s Creation, with the Woman being created later to be his Companion and Helper in carrying out the Work of God. This arrangement, however, did not mean that the Male was superior to the Female, for from the beginning of their history together, they were both…

Equal in their standing before God;
Equal in their call to the work of God; and,
Equal in their blessing by God.

Something else that we learned was that in his Position as Head, the Man was meant to reflect the Headship of God the Father, while the Woman was intended to be a picture of the nature and work of the Holy Spirit. As such, the Man possessed what the late Dr. Myles Munroe referred to as Position Power, while the Woman possessed what he aptly described as Influence Power. In the words of Dr. Munroe…

Power and influence are equal, but different…

First, position-power generally comes with a title, such as king, governor, doctor, or pastor. Second, position-power is usually executed through commands, whether verbal or written. It is the authority that goes with the position, and the commands, that is the nature of the man’s power.

Influence-power manifests itself in a very different way.

First, a woman may have a title, but she doesn’t need a title to lead. She leads by influence…Second, a woman doesn’t need to talk in order to run things. She leads just by her influence…the woman doesn’t need to say a word; she just looks, and people respond. This is a very powerful influence.[1]

Position-power announces itself. Influence-power just comes in and controls things. By the time you realize its presence, it has already taken over.[2]

We will learn more about these differing leadership functions as we progress in this exercise—especially when dealing with Man’s Testing in the Garden, and the consequences of his failure there. Since that was where we left off in Part 1, that is where we will begin this time—as we continue our look into…

God’s Punishment of the Sexes

No matter how well you package it, testing is one gift that I think few, if any, would look forward to receiving. At its mere mention, most of us shrink back, no doubt put off by the mental images it evokes—images of the hard work and preparation it requires, the struggle involved in making the right choices, and the thoughts of failure and the consequences which that would bring. Given the amount of angst involved in testing’s anticipation, it was probably a good thing Adam and Eve did not see it coming.

God, on the other hand, not only knew that it was coming but He purposely allowed it into their lives. That’s because to Him, testing is essential to the proving of one’s righteousness and obedience to the Word and Will of God; so essential, in fact, that He required the same kind of testing of His Son, Jesus Christ. For immediately following His baptism and just prior to the beginning of His public ministry…

…Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1).

The Apostle James explains some of the principles of testing in this way…

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death (James 1:12-15).

While this sort of downward progression is something we see taking place in the testing of Adam and Eve, of more immediate interest to us is the cunning plan lurking behind Satan’s temptation, and the bearing it will have on God’s punishment of Man’s transgression.

The Cunning Behind the Con

In Service: Interrupted…By Devilish Design, we learned of Satan’s goal to subvert the Kingdom of God and supplant it with his own. Since God’s Kingdom is a Spirit-Down one, ordered in the following way…

God first;
The Man next;
Then the Woman; and,
Lastly the Animals…

…for Satan to achieve his goal, he would have to overturn God’s Spirit-Down order and replace it with a Flesh-Up one. By Flesh-Up, I mean that Man would be living life no longer under the direction of the Spirit of God, but according to the fleshly dictates imposed on him by his body and soul. In a Flesh-Up order, Man would be dead to the things of God, and the line of communication between him and his Maker would be severed. In this condition, he could not become a Child of God, and any Service he might have rendered as such to the Kingdom of God would be eliminated. This, of course, is exactly the type of situation that Satan was hoping to create when he approached Adam and Eve in the Garden.

The Effects of the Fall

As for his method of achieving this end, instead of confronting Adam directly, the possessor of the Position Power and the direct Word of God, Satan made his sly and subtle appeal to Eve.

The devil is clever…he was after the man, because the man is the foundation, but he couldn’t get to the man because position-power can usually stand firm as long as its position is genuine. You can’t destroy position-power directly; you have to destroy it through influence.[3]

So, appearing in the form of a Serpent, he beguiled Eve into eating of the Forbidden Fruit and then, through the manipulation of her Influence Power, he succeeded in enticing her husband to join her in her Sin. As a result of this coup, Satan’s reversal of God’s order was complete, for…

A member of the Animal Kingdom had usurped the authority of the Woman;
The Woman had used her Powers of Persuasion to usurp the authority of the Man; and,
The Man had rejected the authority of God and His Word and abdicated his position of Headship in the process.

The Consequences of the Con

In Genesis 3: 14-19, we find the record of God’s judgment on this upheaval of His divine order, a judgment in which the punishment was meted out in the same order in which the crime was committed. Addressing the Serpent first, God said…

Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

Next, He came to the Woman and said…

I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband [for your husband, in some translations], but he shall rule over you.

Then finally, to the Man, He had this to say…

Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Looking closely at these judgments, we can see that in each case, the punishment was appropriate for the crime—something to be expected, given that everything in God’s Creation was designed to reproduce “…after its own kind.” We know this to be true because God said so ten times in the Creation Story found in Genesis 1—a principle which was later affirmed by the Apostle Paul in this very familiar passage…

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life (Galatians 6: 7-8).

And… there is NO Way of Getting Around This

Here, then, is the way this Sowing and Reaping Principle played out in God’s Judgment on the perpetrators of this crime…

The Serpent—as an Animal

Because it had presumed to raise itself above its divinely ordained station in life, it would be brought down, cursed as the lowliest of creatures, to spend its days slithering on the ground.
Because it had tempted Eve to eat what she shouldn’t have, it would have to eat what it didn’t want to—which was dust.
Instead of being looked upon as the beautiful creature that it once was, it would forever after be regarded as a loathsome beast.
Instead of the friendly relationship it had shared with the Woman in the Garden, from then on, their relationship would be one of mutual hostility.

The Serpent—as the Devil

As the one who had exalted himself in rebellion against God, leading others to do the same, he was given notice that eventually he would be “…brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit (Isaiah 14:15).”
Here, he was presented with a “Declaration of War” by God—the notice of perpetual warfare between his kingdom and the Kingdom of God, between his offspring, the Wicked, and the offspring of the Woman, the Righteous.
And, because it was the Woman whom he had beguiled, here he was notified that it would be through her childbearing of the Righteous Seed of God that he would ultimately suffer defeat and meet his doom.

The Woman

The blessing of childbearing, which prior to the Fall, was to have been a joy, would now be accompanied by pain and sorrow.
Submission to her husband, which before the Fall, would never have been an issue or a hardship, would now be a daily struggle.
Her Influence Power, which before the Fall would have remained unchecked, would—until the coming of the promised Deliverer and Restorer—have to be regulated by means of external restraints. For, apart from the internal control provided by the Holy Spirit, the Woman would continue to use her Influence Power to manipulate and control the Man, while he would use his Position Power to try and dominate her in an effort to keep her “in her place.” For some examples of a Woman’s Influence Power gone horribly wrong, we need look no farther than the Old Testament…

— To Sarah who, through her Influence Power, convinced Abraham to have a child by her maid, Hagar, rather than wait for God to fulfill His promise;
— To Delilah who, through her Influence Power, succeeded in bringing down Israel’s most powerful judge, Samson; and,
— To Jezebel who, through her Influence Power, manipulated her weak-willed husband, Ahab, and corrupted Israel with her idolatry.

The Man

His habitation from then on would be among thorns and thistles, instead of the lush beauty he had experienced in the Garden.
His occupation would become a toil, instead of the pleasure that it had once been in the Garden.
His food would become difficult to obtain, instead of being readily available, as it had been in the Garden.
His life would be shortened, and he would be returned to the soil, instead of living forever in the Garden of God’s Fellowship.

At this point, it is important for us to note that God’s Punishment on the Sexes here was in no way a Curse. That’s because, back in Genesis 1: 28, God had already blessed the Man and Woman. And, from what we learn later in Numbers 23: 8,20, when the prophet Balaam was hired by the king of Moab to curse Israel, every time he tried, a blessing would come out instead of a curse. Balaam’s explanation at the time was this…

How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce whom God has not denounced? …he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it.

Since that which God has blessed cannot be cursed, the only things to be cursed here were the Serpent and the Soil. For the Serpent, there is no hope that his curse will ever be removed; but, for the Soil, there is such a hope, and it will be realized when God’s Promise to the Sexes has been fulfilled…

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now (Romans 8: 19-22).

God’s Promise to the Sexes.

The Promise that God made to the Sexes may be hard for us to spot at first, and that’s because it’s contained in the unlikeliest of places—it was not given to the Sexes directly but was first spoken of in the curse which God pronounced on the Serpent. His Promise was that one day, a Holy Offspring would be born to the Woman—the One by whom Satan would finally be crushed, and all that the Sexes had lost in the Fall would be restored. Of course, this Redeemer and Restorer was none other than Jesus Christ, who, through His obedience to the Father, not only secured our Salvation, but restored us to the Purposes of God. Matthew Henry describes the work of Christ on our behalf in the following way…

How admirably the satisfaction our Lord Jesus made by his death and sufferings answered to the sentence here passed upon our first parents.

— Did travailing pains come in with sin? We read of the travail of Christ’s soul (Isaiah 53:11).
— Did subjection come in with sin? Christ was made under the law (Galatians 4:4).
— Did the curse come in with sin? Christ was made a curse for us, died a cursed death (Galatians 3:13).
— Did thorns come in with sin? He was crowned with thorns for us.
— Did sweat come in with sin? He for us did sweat as it were great drops of blood.
— Did sorrow come in with sin? He was a man of sorrows, his soul was, in his agony, exceedingly sorrowful.
— Did death come in with sin? He became obedient to death.[4]

Through His substitutionary death on the Cross—dying the death that should have been ours—Christ redeemed us from the power and the penalty of the Law, delivered us from bondage to sin and death, reconciled us to the Father, gifted us with eternal life, and empowered us with His Holy Spirit. With the Spirit now living within us, writing God’s Laws on our hearts, the restraints previously imposed on us by the Old Testament Law are no longer needed.

Now, empowered from within by the Spirit of Christ, the Man can love his wife as Christ loves the Church, regard her as his equal in the work of the Lord, and not have to resort to his Position Power to dominate her into submission. The Woman, empowered by the same Spirit, can respect her husband and submit to his leadership—for the sake of order—just as Christ has submitted to the leadership of the Father. She can keep her Influence Power in check herself, making sure that it is used to glorify God and not to manipulate others—because…

Under the redemptive work of Christ, the woman is not only restored to fellowship with God but is restored to the position of partner with her male counterpart. Therefore, she is no longer to be dominated or ruled by the male, because, if she were, it would mean that the redemptive work of Christ had not been successful.[5]

If the Spirit of God can raise Christ from the dead, He can certainly control a Woman’s Influence Power!

Scriptural Stumbling Blocks to a Woman’s Service

Now that we have established the fact that, in Christ, Male and Female are once again…

Equal in their standing before God;
Equal in their call to the work of God; and,
Equal in their blessing by God…

…why is it that Women are still being denied the freedom to exercise their God-given gifts of Leadership in His Service? I think that, in most cases, it can be traced back to a misunderstanding of the two most troublesome Scripture passages that relate to Women. Both of these were penned by Paul, with the first one being found in 1 Corinthians 14: 33-35…

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church…

…and the second one being found in 1 Timothy 2: 11-15…

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through [the] childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

Doesn’t the Church have more important issues to deal with than this?

The reason these passages have created so many problems is that they have, more often than not, been taken out of their immediate context; and instead of being interpreted in light of the cultural conditions of the day, they have been isolated from the rest of the passage and elevated to the stature of a doctrine which, in its meaning, flies in the face of not only Paul’s but Jesus’ attitudes toward women.

For example, in his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul was dealing with a number of problems creating disorder in their church—problems such as spiritual pride, the misunderstanding and misuse of spiritual gifts, marital issues, confusion concerning the resurrection, and even incest. Please note Paul’s emphasis on God not being a God of confusion, but of peace. This is a good indication that there was confusion in the church, and it was being caused by some unruly women.

So what did Paul mean when he told the women to keep silent? If he was indeed saying that women should not minister publicly, he was contradicting what he said earlier when he gave instructions for women’s dress code while prophesying! There must be an explanation. As we examine these verses, we will see that Paul was definitely not teaching against women ministering publicly. Rather, he was correcting the way in which women were ministering in the Corinthian church.[6]

In his letter to Timothy, however, Paul was addressing a different set of problems; ones created as a result of false teaching infiltrating the church at Ephesus—the church where Timothy was ministering. In all likelihood, this false teaching involved some “old wives’ tales” which were being passed down from the older women to the younger ones; tales promoting Eve, in her sin, as a benefactor to humanity, instead of as the transgressor that Paul later states she was. To counter this heresy, Paul first addressed the women of the church in general, instructing them on how Godly women should dress and behave. Then, he directed his attention to one woman in particular—the one most responsible for promoting the false doctrine—and commanded that she not be allowed to teach. Instead…

Paul…commanded this woman to learn but not to teach. Why? Because she had been teaching false doctrine. Therefore, Paul set aside the normal link between learning and teaching in her case. For a season, she was being disciplined, corrected. She couldn’t be allowed to continue spreading false doctrine. It was time for her to abstain from teaching altogether and dedicate herself to study alone.

Paul silenced this woman not because she was a woman but because she was teaching false doctrine to others.[7]*

Now, concerning the question of women being saved through motherhood…

The phrase “the childbearing” is unique. It isn’t found anywhere else in the New Testament…it’s a noun, dramatically preceded by the definite article (‘the childbearing’) to point to one particular childbearing…

‘The childbearing’ refers to the one mediator between God and persons, the person Christ Jesus, the promised seed of Eve, the Child born of a woman. The issue at stake here was salvation, not motherhood. Women aren’t saved by getting pregnant and having babies. They’re saved by the child who was born–Jesus! Throughout this passage, Paul was talking about how men and women are redeemed, not about how they procreate. The central truth of this entire passage is Jesus and God’s desire for all to be saved through the promised childbearing.[8]

As for Jesus’ attitude toward women, I think we can agree that He always treated them with respect. We have no record of Him ever rebuking a woman and telling her to be quiet or forbidding her to minister in some fashion. Following His encounter with the woman at the well, she left Him and immediately went back to her town and started preaching about Jesus—something which He did not criticize or attempt to discourage. It was to a group of women that He entrusted the good news of His resurrection, and it was to His Bride, the Church, that He entrusted the good news of His saving grace; charging her to use her Influence Power to convince the world of His Truth, and to…

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28: 19-20).

Now, for those who may still have issues with Women in Leadership, I would like to offer this suggestion from Dr. Munroe…

…if you as a male have problems with a female preacher, I encourage you to close your eyes and listen to the spirit-man speaking. This approach has helped many men. Listen to what’s being said. If the female house is the problem, then ignore the house and listen to the resident, the spirit-man within, because God speaks through the spirit-man. It is the Spirit that gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6) [8]…

…and, to bring this session to a close with this thought from J. Lee Grady…

Jesus’ blood was shed for all women, and it is the only covering they will ever need. Blood-bought women don’t need a man to bring them closer to God. Blood-bought women don’t need a man to legitimize their ministries. Blood-bought women don’t need a man to ‘cover’ their spiritual endeavors or to replace the leadership of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

The blood of Christ is a woman’s true covering. For the church to require anything more is to renounce our faith.^[9]

In the Spirit-Man there is No Male and Female

*Since space and time will not permit a further examination of the passages here, I would like to suggest these books as resources for those interested in a more in-depth study of the subject…

Understanding the Purpose and Power of Woman, by Dr. Myles Munroe;
Why Not Women? by Loren Cunningham and David Joel Hamilton;
I Suffer Not a Woman, by Richard Clark Kroeger and Catherine Clark Kroeger;
10 Lies the Church Tells Women, by J. Lee Grady; and,
What Paul Really Said About Women, by John T. Bristow.

In keeping with the theme of this exercise, here is Shackles, by Mary Mary…

[1] Dr. Myles Munroe, Understanding the Purpose and Power of Woman (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2001), 185-186.

[2] Munroe, 189.

[3] Munroe, 187.

[4] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Zondervan Publishing House, 1960), 11.

[5] Munroe, 191.

[6] Loren Cunningham and David Joel Hamilton, Why Not Women? (Seattle, Washington: YWAM Publishing, 2000), 185.

[7] Cunningham and Hamilton, 219.

[8] Cunningham and Hamilton, 224.

[9] Munroe, 197.

[10] J. Lee Grady, 10 Lies the Church Tells Women (Lake May, Florida: Charisma House, 2000), 100.

Sanctification: Restoring the Soul through the Word of God

June 8, 2016 by Judy

We really stretched our spiritual muscles in our last exercise—Sanctification: Restoring the Soul through Prayer—as we learned how the Holy Spirit teaches us to talk to our Heavenly Father through prayer, and how He uses those prayers to…

Make us One with the Father in His Person; and,
Make us One with the Father in His Purpose.

Additionally, through these prayers He opens up an emotional “love-line” between God and us; creating a place where we are free to express our deepest feelings and concerns without censure; and where, as our spirits and hearts become united with God’s over time, we are able to absorb and share in the things which are nearest and dearest to His heart.

Prayer, however, isn’t the only tool that the Holy Spirit uses in the restoration of our souls; He also relies on the Word of God to instruct us on how to listen to God, and to discern His will. In much the same way that the Spirit employs prayer to bring our hearts into one accord with the Father’s, He uses the Word to transform our minds from ones programmed for evil by the world, our flesh, and the devil, into ones which have been rewired for righteousness by God—as ones having been brought into alignment with the very mind of Christ.

Mind Under Construction

For some insight into this mind, we need look no further than Philippians 2:5-8, where the Spirit through the Apostle Paul admonishes us to…

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by being obedient, to the point of death, even death on the cross.

This sort of humble, selfless mindset certainly doesn’t resemble the ones we brought with us into our new relationships with God; rather, ours was more like the one described in Ephesians 4:17-18…

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

To put it another way, while they were in their unregenerate states…

…our minds served no useful purpose as far as God and His kingdom were concerned;
…our mind’s ability to grasp or comprehend the Truth of the Gospel was clouded over;
…our minds were estranged from and even hostile to God;
…our minds were uneducated or untaught in the ways of God; all because…
…our hearts were rigidly firm in their will and purpose, and not easily penetrated by the Truth of God’s Word…

…conditions due to the fact that…

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14).

All of this changed, however, when we were Born Again and the Holy Spirit moved in with us, beginning the transformation of our once darkened minds into ones filled with the light and life of Christ—and, ones in complete agreement with the will and purpose of God our Father. A change as radical as this, though, isn’t something that takes place very quickly or easily. It can only be brought about as we, who were previously uneducated and untaught in the ways of God, begin to learn…

Who God really is;
What His purposes are for mankind;
What His plans are for the earth; and,
The means He uses to see that these plans and purposes are achieved.

Since this kind of information is not and has never been available to the minds of natural men, in order for us to obtain it, we must trust the Holy Spirit for its provision; for, it is He who…

…searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him?

So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Holy Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual (1 Cor. 2:10-13).

And it is these spiritual truths which He has made available to us is the Bible, the Spirit-inspired training manual on God and His Ways known to us as the Word of God.

The Bible as the Word of God

Although we often hear it spoken of as such, what do we really mean when we say that the Bible is the Word of God? Well, in checking the dictionary for the meaning of the word “Word,” we find it formally defined as…

…a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning…[1]

…which is just a fancy way of saying that a word is the spoken or written representation of a person’s thoughts—a definition wholly consistent with the way it is used in John 1:1-4—where, the Word spoken of is a Person, who is none other than Jesus Christ…

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

In this passage, the Greek term used for Word is logos which, roughly translated, means collected thought and wisdom and, in this case, refers to the collected thought and wisdom of God. That is, in describing Jesus as the logos of God, John is saying that Jesus is the embodiment of the collected thought and wisdom of God, who was spoken into the world, not only during its creation and throughout all human history, but also in His Incarnation—something which he makes clear later in John 1:14, where he tells us that…

…the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In essence, he is saying that everything God thought about truth, righteousness, holiness, love, compassion, humility, mercy, grace, integrity, strength, perseverance, selflessness, and so much more, was expressed to us in Jesus. And, not only that, but everything that God intended mankind to be was manifested in the flesh for us by Jesus. As the righteous and obedient Son who came to carry out His Father’s will on the earth, He was, is, and always will be the Divine Template for what a Child of God should be like; and, He will be the One against whom we will all be measured—that is, as we all…

…attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ (Eph. 4:13-15).

It is this Word, then—this collected thought and wisdom of God made visible to us in the Person of Jesus—that the Holy Spirit has scribed, or written down, in a book called the Bible.

What We Need to Know about the Bible

When we speak of the Bible, what we are actually referring to is the collection of books considered to be the sacred texts of both Judaism and Christianity. The word itself comes from the Greek word biblia, the plural form of biblion, which is a diminutive of biblos—the word meaning book. It got its name because books were originally made from byblos, or papyrus—the plant that was used to make parchment and the material upon which books were written. Byblos was also the name of the Phoenician city that exported papyrus to other parts of the ancient world.

The Jewish Bible, written mostly in Hebrew, came first and consisted of three parts: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Later, when the Christian Bible came into being, it was written in Greek, Latin, and Syriac, and contained the same books of the Hebrew Bible, only in a different order—and with the books of the New Testament added to it. In order to distinguish between the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures, the terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” were introduced, and were in general usage by the end of the second century AD. Although the Greek word for testament is usually translated as “will,” the Hebrew for it is translated as “covenant.” Therefore, when we speak of the “Old” and “New” Testaments, what we are actually referring to are the covenants that God made with His people during each of these two eras.

Now, to add to our knowledge about and to enhance our study of the Bible, there are a few more things that we need to understand about it—the first being, it is unlike any other book that has ever been written. It is unique in all of literature because it is the only trustworthy source of God’s words—and of His self-revelation to mankind—that exists in the world. Actually, the Bible is not just one book but a collection of books—sixty-six, to be exact—that have been arranged in a systematic, progressive, and comprehensive way so that God’s revelation of Himself could be made known and understandable to any and all who chose to receive it. Although it was transcribed by many men over the course of fifteen hundred years, men who employed a variety of genres and styles in its recording, it is remarkably consistent in its message, in its portrayal of the person and purposes of God, and in its honest representation of the nature and character of humanity.

The only way to explain such a consistency in its content over so great a period of time is to say that, in spite of its having so many human scribes, the Bible has only one author—and that author is God Himself. Only the One who is able to declare that…

…I the Lord do not change… (Mal. 3:6), and …I am God, and there is none other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done (Is. 46: 9-10)…

…could be capable of accurately documenting a story which transcended the generations of the very ones who took part in recording it. Through the means of divine inspiration, or through the intimate involvement of His Spirit, God made known His thoughts and words to a select group of men, and then He guided them in the ways in which those thoughts and words were to best be presented. While each presentation reflected the personality of the man who was doing the writing, as well as the times during which he lived, the words were always God’s; words which repeatedly conveyed the timeless truths that every man and every generation should know.

We learn more about this matter of inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:16, where we are told that the Bible was…

… breathed out by God and [is] profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

This breathing out by God means that the words of the Bible were imparted directly by the Spirit of God, an impartation which made the Bible a living book imbued with power. Hebrews 4:12 confirms this when it tells us that…

…the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

In other words, as a living book, the Word of God is able to penetrate our innermost beings in order to confront us with the truth about God and ourselves, and to convict us of our deviations from or our rejections of that truth. As the only real source of truth in the world, the Bible then is the only trustworthy guidebook man has for life. Not only does it teach him how to live successfully—that is, to live like Jesus in the here and now, but it also instructs him on how he can obtain the eternal life which God has promised to those who will come to Him through faith in Jesus.

Since God’s purpose in authoring the Bible was to make Himself known to mankind, it would follow that He intended His Book to be for all people of all time, and not something reserved for only Christians and Jews. This would mean that everything in it would have application, at some point, for every person who has ever lived, and that its principles and truths would be so universal that they would be relevant to every age and every culture. This would make it possible for even the most seemingly disparate people to be able to comprehend them–meaning that the peasants working in the rice patties of ancient China, the tribesmen hunting for heads in the jungles of Africa, twenty-first century penthouse dwellers, and kings and con men throughout each generation would all be able to learn the truth presented within its pages.

Some of the other things about it that we need to know are…

The Bible is a multi-layered presentation of truth. By that, I mean that it presents us with a number of important truths, on several different levels or dimensions, all at the same time. Through the stories of real people, who are participating in real life activities, at real times in human history, we not only learn important lessons that can be used in our everyday lives, but we also learn about God’s prophetic or future plans for mankind, the earth, and His enemies, as well.

The Bible is consistent in its method of teaching. Throughout the Bible, the way in which God explains spiritual truths to us is by taking the things with which we are familiar and using them to teach us about things which are beyond our comprehension—that is, He takes the things that we can see, which are temporal or earthly in nature, to explain those things that we cannot see, because they are spiritual and eternal in nature. Toward this end, He purposefully incorporated things in His creation that could be used for these divine illustrations.

The Bible is ALL about Jesus. He is there at the very beginning, He is there at the very end, and He is there in every chapter and verse in between. Throughout the Old Testament, He is seen covertly—that is, some aspect of His Person is hidden within the pictures or types that were created by the lives of the Old Testament characters; and He is represented in each of the feasts and in the rituals of the Old Testament system of worship. In the New Testament, He is seen overtly or openly, making His appearance in the flesh as the fulfillment of each of those Old Testament pictures or types—and, as the physical manifestation to us of the collective thought and wisdom of God! It is through His application of this thought and wisdom, which permeates every page of the Bible, that the Holy Spirit is able to transform our minds from the carnal to the spiritual, to restore our souls to their original function as mediators, and to teach us how to…

…prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Rom. 12:2).

Instead of our usual musical selection, and to add to our understanding of the Bible we have been talking about, here is the video, “The Bible: The Story Behind the Story,” which is also available for viewing in our Video Vault…

[1] word. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/word (accessed: June 04, 2016).

Sanctification: Restoring the Soul through Prayer

May 27, 2016 by Judy

During our previous exercise in Sanctification, we learned that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to…

Birth us as the spiritual children of God; then,
Mature us into sons and daughters of God who are committed to carrying on the work of Christ in the world.

While the birthing part of the Spirit’s work is accomplished at the time of our Regeneration, the maturing part is something which takes place over time, as the Spirit works relentlessly yet lovingly within us to restore our souls to their original function as mediators between our spirits and bodies—or, as the conduits through which the knowledge of God’s will is transferred from the one to the other. The goal of all this work is to bring us to the place where we are living in obedience to God, with our carnal or fleshly natures under the control of His Spirit, for the purpose of implementing God’s will on the earth.

The way in which the Holy Spirit accomplishes this great work of restoration in a Child of God is by…

Teaching him to talk to His Father through Prayer;
Teaching him to listen to and discern the will of His Father through the Study of His Word;
Teaching him to bring his will into alignment with His Father’s will through Worship…

…the wonderful end result of all this being the production of the Fruit of the Spirit—the reproduction of the very Character of Christ—within the emotions, mind, and will making up his personality. Since talking to God is such an integral part of the sanctification process, this exercise will be given over to learning more about Prayer and the way the Holy Spirit works through it to restore our souls.

Talking to God through Prayer

Since learning to talk is one of the earliest developmental milestones in the life of a child, it should come as no surprise that one of the first things the Holy Spirit does in the life a new child of God is teach him to talk to his Heavenly Father. This extraordinary privilege is made possible when, as a result of the New Birth, the spirit of the new believer is awakened from its previously coma-like state and the lines of communication between his spirit and God’s Spirit are opened up and activated. Once this system is operational, the two parties involved in this wonderful new relationship can begin to communicate with one another. This is essential because…

People in relationships must be able to talk to each other;
People who love each other must be able to express that love; and,
Prayer is the language of love connecting the Father with His children.

The late Dr. Myles Munroe expanded on this concept in the following way…

To understand its essence, we must realize that prayer began with the creation of mankind. It was not instituted after the Fall but before it. Prayer existed from the beginning of God’s relationship with man…

The essence of prayer is twofold. Prayer is…
…an expression of mankind’s unity and relationship of love with God;
…an expression of mankind’s affirmation of and participation in God’s purposes for the earth.

To pray means to commune with God, to become one with God. It means union with Him—unity and singleness of purpose, thought, desire, will, reason, motive, objective, and feeling. It is also the medium through which the human spirit affects and is affected by the will and purpose of the divine Creator. Therefore, prayer is man’s vehicle of the soul and spirit by which he communes with the invisible God.[1]

In other words, prayer isn’t just about us mouthing words to God; it about us learning to speak to Him in such a way that we…

Become One with Him in His Person; and,
Become One with Him in His Purpose.

Becoming One with God in His Person

Let’s face it—when we first came to faith in Christ, about the best thing that could have been said about anyone of us is that we were a big spiritual mess. That’s because, up to that point, we had spent our entire lives dancing to the tune of the world; living according to its standards, with our carnal natures dictating the ways we thought, spoke, and acted. The Apostle Paul accurately described our pre-salvation condition in Ephesians 2:13, where he said that…

…you were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were, by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:1-3).

However, when our spirits were reborn and the Holy Spirit came to live within us, He began breathing life into our once dead spirits by…

Assuring us of our salvation and of our new positions as sons and daughters in the family of God—prompting us to go to our Father with prayers of thanksgiving and praise for His gracious gift of salvation;
Writing the laws of God’s holiness upon our hearts—making us conscious of the sin in our lives and prompting us to seek His forgiveness through prayers of repentance;
Making us aware of and sensitive to the needs of others—moving us to prayers of petition and supplication on their behalf; and,
Calling our attention to the injustices in the world around us—compelling us to prayers of intercession in an effort to bring about change.

The more we prayed these Spirit-led prayers, the stronger our spirits became and the weaker our flesh grew. With our spirits growing stronger, it became easier for us to…

…be imitators of God as beloved children (Eph. 5:1);

…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thes. 5:18);

…put off your old self, which belongs to your former way of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:22-24);

…set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth…put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, covetousness, which is idolatry (Col. 3: 2,5); and,

…put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience…forgiving each other…And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony (Col. 3: 12, 14)…

…changes in our attitudes and actions enabling us to become more like Jesus while, at the same time, becoming One with God in His Purpose. And, just what is that purpose?

Becoming One with God in His Purpose

We find God’s purpose laid out for us quite clearly in Ephesians 1:4-14, where it was revealed that…

…he [God] chose us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined [pre-designed] us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ, according the purpose of his will…

…In him [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace…making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him [Christ] we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will; and,

…In him [Christ] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

In short, it was God’s purpose, before the world ever began, to have a family of spiritual sons and daughters who would be holy, just like Him. In order for them to be holy, though, they would first have to be redeemed and forgiven of their transgressions of God’s holy law—something made possible through the gracious and atoning work of Christ on the Cross. To those choosing to receive His gift of redemption and Sonship, God also purposed to reveal the mystery of His will, which is to bring the Kingdom of Heaven, or the rule of God, to Earth through Christ; and, His plan to provide them with an eternal spiritual inheritance, guaranteed by the Holy Spirit Himself.

So, then, the ultimate purpose of this great Purpose of God is that, as we are transformed from sinners into the image and likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ, and we carry that image and likeness to the four corners of the earth—

…the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14); and,

…in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:7).

And, how did our participation in this great Purpose of God begin? It all began with prayer!

The Practice of and the Pattern for Prayer

Now that we have familiarized ourselves with the purpose for and the restorative power of prayer, all that remains for us to accomplish in this exercise is to discuss the Practice of Prayer itself. Since there are a number of guidelines for prayer scattered throughout the Bible, especially in the New Testament, as a means of providing ourselves with a handy reference, I have organized some of them into the following question and answer format…

How should we come to prayer?

In faith…

…[for] without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him (Heb. 11:6);

With confidence…

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4:16); and,

…this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him (1 John 5:14-15);

In humbleness…

Humble yourself, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you (1 Pet. 5:6-7); and,

Without any unforgiveness in our hearts…

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses (Mark 11:25).

When should we pray?

At all times and without ceasing

…praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication…with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints… (Eph. 6:18);

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, giving thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thes. 5:16-18).

Who should we pray for?

Everyone…

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:1-4);

But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you (Luke 6:28);

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you might be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working (James 5:13-16).

What are we to pray about?

Everything…

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak (Mark 14:38);

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9);

The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest (Luke 10:2);

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him (James 1:5);

…do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:6-7); and,

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father maybe glorified in the Son (John 14:13).

Many of these guidelines were covered, at least in principle, in the instructions and the Pattern for Prayer that Jesus gave to His disciples in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:1-13, when He said…

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

The Pattern for Prayer Given by Jesus

Finally, we are to pray, remembering always that…

…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For [when] we do not know what to pray for as we ought…the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Rom. 8:26-27).

Damaris Carbaugh reminds us that prayer takes us into the presence of God…

[1] Dr. Myles Munroe, Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer: Earthly License for Heavenly Interference (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House 2002) 35-36.

Sanctification: Regeneration Perfected

April 14, 2016 by Judy

In our first set of exercises, we began stretching our spiritual muscles as we learned some of the basic principles of Salvation, such as…

What it is and why we need it;
How to obtain it through the New Birth;
That it’s God’s destiny for everyone but that only those who “elect” to have it will receive it; and,
Once it is received, it can never be lost or stolen.

We also learned that Salvation is the process by which God redeems lost sinners—those who have been in bondage to the world, the flesh, and the devil since their births; buying their freedom for them through the substitutionary death of Christ on the Cross and making it possible for them to be adopted into the family of God as His children.

A person’s Salvation isn’t limited to his just being adopted by God, though; it also involves his being transformed into a true Christ-resembling Child of the Most High. That’s because, once a person becomes a child of God through the process known as the New Birth, he or she can no longer continue to think, speak, and act like the sinner he or she once was; instead, he or she must learn to think and behave in a manner befitting the son or daughter of a Holy King. And this is where Sanctification comes into play.

As we discovered in Salvation: What It Is and Why We Need It, Sanctification is the second of the three Stages in Salvation, with the first being Redemption and the last being Glorification; and, that it means…

To make holy; set apart as sacred; consecrate;
To purify or free from sin;
To make productive of or conducive to spiritual blessing.

And, according to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, it is something which…

…involves more than a mere moral reformation of character, brought about by the power of the truth: it is the work of the Holy Spirit bringing the whole nature more and more under the influences of the new gracious principles implanted in the soul in regeneration. In other words, sanctification is the carrying on to perfection the work begun in regeneration, and it extends to the whole man.[1]

The Work of Regeneration

In order to better understand the work being referred to here, we will need to go back to Salvation: How Do We Get It, where we learned that…

…Regeneration is the act by which our dead spirits are brought back to life again by the Holy Spirit of God…

…and, where we learned that the need for this regeneration goes all the way back to Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden. For it was there that their spirits, as well as those of all of their future descendants, died—or were separated or cut off from God. As for how this spiritual death impacted them, and us, in practical terms, it not only shut down the communication system that God had established between Him and them, but it also overturned the authority structure He had designed for His entire creation.

System Failure and Structural Collapse

When God created man, He fashioned him with a Spirit, Soul, and Body, so that…

Through his Spirit, he could relate to and communicate with God;
Through his Body, he could relate to and function in the physical world; and,
Through his Soul, consisting of his mind, will, and emotions, he could relate to other human beings, with his soul also serving as the connecting point or mediator between his spirit and his body.

When this system was functioning as it should—which was prior to the entrance of sin into the world—it meant that…

God’s Spirit could speak to man’s spirit, telling him what God wanted him to do;
Man’s spirit could relay that message to man’s soul; and,
Man’s soul could then direct his body to carry out the command that it had been given by God.

In this way, the will of God would be carried out on the earth by man.

As for the authority structure that God had devised for His creation, it was ordered along very similar lines—with God at the top of the structure, Man next in authority under Him, then the Woman (although an equal partner with her husband yet coming under his authority, for the sake of order and accountability), to be followed lastly by the creatures in the animal world. Given that this arrangement was one that had been ordained by God, it should come as no surprise that in his scheme to overturn it, Satan would come disguised as an animal (a creature at the lowest level of authority) and present himself first to the woman at the next level of authority; then when she had been won over, she could then be used to entice the man (at the next level up) to disobey God.

Unfortunately, and certainly unforeseen by our forbearers, this colossal structural collapse marked the beginning of mankind’s perpetual rebellion against authority in every form, manifesting itself not only in his rebellion against God’s authority, but also in the rebellion of wives against husbands, children against parents, workers against employers, and the governed against those governing them. It was also the spark needed to give rise to the egocentric lust for power that would eventually lead to the commission of every other kind of sin that man could imagine.

In addition, this sin resulted in the failure of the once ideal system of communication between God and Man. Instead of the top-down system previously described, it became a bottom up one in which man’s flesh, instead of his spirit, began dictating to him what his thoughts, feelings, and actions should be. With the death or separation of man’s spirit from God’s Spirit as a result of sin, there was no longer any communication taking place between God and man; a situation leaving man’s powerful fleshly appetites to determine what he would or would not do in any given situation–a situation which has remained until this day.

The Apostle James explains the consequences of this system failure in the following way…

…what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war with you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel (James 4:1-2)…

…each person is tempted when he lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it is conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death (James 1:13-15).

Extending Regeneration to the Whole Man

Since the unregenerate, or…

…the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14)…

…when a person becomes Born Again, it then becomes the work of the Holy Spirit, through the process of Sanctification, to restore what was lost to that person as a result of The Fall and to reprogram him as to the right way to live. As we have just learned, this means that…

His soul will have to be restored to its proper function; and,
His inborn tendency to rebel against authority will have to be dealt with and brought under control.

Although this work is a challenging one, one taking a lifetime to complete, its success is insured by the presence of the Holy Spirit who, once a person has been regenerated, takes up residence within him. Then, working from the inside out, He not only begins teaching this new Child of God the right way to live, but He also provides him with the supernatural power he needs to succeed. Evidence of this success becomes apparent in the life of the believer as…

He learns to communicate with God, his Father, through Prayer;
His mind is transformed into the mind of Christ through the Study of God’s Word;
The character of Christ is formed in him through Testing;
The works of Christ are reproduced in his service through the Gifts of the Spirit; and,
He learns to successfully wage Spiritual Warfare through his respect for and submission to God’s Authority Structure.

We will learn much more about this process of spiritual transformation in our upcoming workout sessions, as we begin the basic exercises in Sanctification dealing with Prayer, the Bible, Worship, the Fruit of the Spirit and Testing; with these being followed later by the more advanced exercises in Service, the Gifts of the Spirit, and Spiritual Warfare. But before moving on to these other exercises, we must first become better acquainted with our Trainer and Coach, the Holy Spirit–something we will do in our next session together. Until then…

…may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thes. 5:23)

The Sidewalk Prophets remind us that our salvation makes all things new…

[1] Sanctification. Dictionary.com. Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/sanctification (accessed: April 07, 2016).

Next Stop…the New Birth!

March 12, 2014 by Judy

Leaving Salvation Station

Now that everyone is back on board the train, it’s time for us to leave the Salvation Station; the place where we were introduced to God’s wonderful plan for saving sinners from death and destruction while, at the same time, adopting them as His very own children–in the process, giving them a hope in this life as well as a glorious future in the next.

What we didn’t learn here, though, is just how we can appropriate this salvation that God has so graciously provided for us. With that as our immediate goal, let’s make our way to the next stop on our tour, the New Birth Station; where we will not only discover what the New Birth is, but for those who have never been this way before, they will learn how they, too, can participate in the New Birth experience and be “born again.”

While some may consider the “head” knowledge of God’s salvation which we gained at our first stop to be sufficient for any venture into the world of the Word, for the purposes of this journey that mere intellectual knowledge will prove to be woefully inadequate when it comes to providing us with access to all of the places listed on our itinerary. That’s because we will actually be traveling from one land into another, going from the darkened land of the natural where we live every day, into the illumined land of the spiritual where God dwells eternally. Without an experiential knowledge of salvation, should we even make it into the Word, we would be at a loss to understand the language, the laws, and the culture of that land once we had arrived there.

I should also point out that there is a heavily guarded border which separates these two lands, and since it runs right through the New Birth Station, before we can go any farther on our tour, we will have to stop there and make our way through Customs before being allowed to cross the border. The purpose of this processing is to help ensure that all of us will have the “experiential” knowledge of salvation that it will take to make the rest of our trip truly enjoyable and productive. Once that has been done, we will be provided with the Passports that we will need for further travel.

“Anything to Declare?”

Well, what do you know—we’re here at the station already! Quickly, before you leave the train, let me give you some instructions which should help to facilitate your processing through Customs. As soon as you disembark, you will see two signs overhead: one saying, “Something to Declare” and the other saying “Nothing to Declare.” For those who are traveling in Group #1—those who have already experienced the New Birth—please proceed to the “Something to Declare” counter where when asked, you will declare “Salvation by the Blood of the Lamb,” be handed your passport, and then be escorted back to the comfort of the train. However, those who are traveling in Groups #2 and #3 (and possibly some in Group #1 who are not certain you’ve experienced the New Birth), will need to proceed to the “Nothing to Declare” counter where you will begin your processing through Customs in the following order:

First, you will visit Room 1, where you will learn about the mandate for the New Birth;
Next, you will proceed to Room 2, where you will learn about the spiritual dynamics of the New Birth;
Then, you will go to Room 3, where you will learn about the legal reasons for the New Birth; and,
Finally, you will go to Room 4, where you can share in the experience the New Birth for yourself.

Once you have completed the process, you will be escorted to the “Something to Declare” counter where, when asked, you too will have the opportunity to declare, “Salvation by the Blood of the Lamb,” be handed your passport, and then be escorted back to the comfort of the train.

Room 1–The Mandate for the New Birth

A Nighttime Visit from Nicodemus

Here, you will learn what Jesus had to say about the New Birth, as you witness a scene taking place between Him and one of the religious leaders of His day. This scene, as recorded for us in John 3:1-14, takes place one night as Nicodemus seeks out Jesus for reasons which are never really made clear to us. That’s because, before Nicodemus is able let us in on the motivation for this visit, Jesus, knowing the real need of his heart, tells him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (V.3).” Thinking like a true natural man, Nicodemus tries to reason how he could go back into his mother’s womb and be born a second time. To this, Jesus responds, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said unto you, ‘You must be born again’ (vv. 5-7).”

During this interchange, Jesus reveals that there is a fixed gulf between our fleshly beings and our spirits, and although everyone born into this world will be initially born into a fleshly or physical state, only those who have been regenerated by the Spirit of God will be born into life in the Spirit. This, then, is the mandate given by Jesus Himself, stating that anyone who hopes to see God and participate in His kingdom must be born again. However, what isn’t made clear here are the answers to the questions of why is this necessary and how does one go about making this happen. So, in pursuit of those answers, you will go on to…

Room 2–The Spiritual Dynamics of the New Birth

The dynamics involved in the New Birth have everything to do with regeneration. Since our DOT for regeneration is—the act of bringing something into existence again, or to form again or to be made new—for us, regeneration is the act by which our dead spirits are brought back to life again by the Holy Spirit of God. You may be wondering, though, just why is this necessary?

It Only Takes One Sin to Separate Us from a Holy God

To answer that question, we will need to go back to the beginning of human history, back to the time when Adam and Eve first disobeyed God; the time when their spirits, as well as those of all of their future descendants, died because sin caused them to be separated or cut off from God. What this means is that every human being who has been born since then, with the exception of Jesus Christ, has been born spiritually dead—or, with a spirit that has been cut off from its source of life in God.

As Watchman Nee explains in his book, The Spiritual Man…

…when we say the spirit is dead it does not imply there is no more spirit; we simply mean the spirit has lost its sensitivity towards God and thus is dead to Him. The exact situation is that the spirit is incapacitated, unable to communicate with God…it remains in a coma as if non-existent.” And, as a result of this death, no descendant of Adam has ever been able to have a relationship with God while remaining in his or her natural or fleshly state.

The New Birth, then, is what occurs when God’s Spirit brings a man’s spirit back to life, restoring that man’s lost relationship to God, and making it possible for him to communicate with God once again. But—and this is a very BIG BUT—before this can happen, certain legalities will have to be taken care of.

Room 3–The Legal Reasons for the New Birth

As we learned back at the Salvation Station, each of us has, throughout our lives, offended God by violating His laws, or His codes of acceptable moral and spiritual conduct. In the process, we have unwittingly erected a barrier between Him and us, a wall of offense which makes any relationship between us impossible. Until such a time as we confess our faults—that is, we agree with God about what we have done wrong and seek His forgiveness—we will continue to be “cut off” from Him, losing whatever opportunities we may have had to get to know Him and to become part of His family. Thus, the elimination of our offenses against God, along with the removal of the wall which those offenses created, is what the New Birth is all about.

Unfortunately, because most of us have no concept of what God’s righteous requirements for relationship with Him are, we don’t know what we have done to offend Him. Most of us have lived our lives according to the codes of conduct that we acquired from our parents, picked up from our friends and associates, or created for ourselves in response to the ever-changing circumstances of life. Unlike God’s immutable standard of holiness, our concepts of what constitutes right and wrong have been derived from very human and fallible sources and, as a result, tend to have very nebulous boundaries. Consequently, the principles by which we live are often adapted to the situations in which we find ourselves at any given moment, with what is true and right in one situation differing from that in another. With backgrounds steeped in such a relativistic system of ethics, how are we to know for sure what God’s requirements are; how can we understand what our offenses against Him have been?

The only way we can know how we have missed God’s “mark” for acceptable behavior (and sin is defined as “missing the mark” of God) is through His Word, where God has set forth His standard of righteousness, or right living, in Exodus 20: 1-17; a standard we know today as the Ten Commandments. There, He makes clear that in order for us to have a spiritual relationship with Him, we must meet certain conditions:

We can have no gods other than Him; ours is to be a personal and an exclusive relationship;
We cannot make an idol, or anything in the form of a person or an object from the natural or spiritual world, which we worship in His place; so, no person, possession, position, pleasure, power or money can be substituted for Him;
We cannot take His name in vain—that is, use His name in a disrespectful or dishonest manner. We are not to use God’s name as a swear word, or to legitimatize or authorize any activity which He has not sanctioned;
We are to remember the Sabbath day, or one day in seven as a day of rest and worship and keep it holy, or set apart for Him;
We are to honor our parents, respecting them as God’s appointed authorities in our lives;
We are not to murder or, according to Jesus in an expanded version found in Matthew 5: 22, to even harbor hatred in our hearts toward another person;
We cannot steal—that is, take anything which is not ours, including money, property, an employer’s time, a person’s reputation, or the affection of someone who belongs to another;
We cannot commit adultery or any sexual sin, either by thinking about it or actually doing it (see Matthew 5: 28 for another amplified rendition);
We cannot bear false witness or lie about anyone else; and,
We are not to covet, or want for our own, anything that belongs to another person; this includes his or her spouse, children, positions, possessions, personalities, looks, or money.

Of course, we have all violated these laws at one time or another so, how is it possible for us, as naturally unrighteous people, to meet God’s demands for righteousness, and enter into a relationship with Him? In all honesty, we can’t—at least, not on our own. We must have the help of Someone who can meet these demands on our behalf; Someone who can bridge the gap between God’s holiness and our sinful condition, thereby making a relationship between God and us possible–Someone you will learn more about in…

The Cross is Man’s Only Bridge to God

Room 4–The Experience of the New Birth

Since God is the only One who completely understands the strict demands of His law, as well as man’s total inability to meet those demands, He took it upon Himself to create a plan by which Someone, namely Jesus, could bring God and man together. In order to understand how His plan works, here is what we need to know:

First, we need to understand that God is so holy that anyone who comes into His presence must be free from any and all impurities, or else he will die. When God told Adam that if he ate from the forbidden tree he would die, He was revealing to him the principle that “…the wages of sin is death (Romans 3:23)” and that “the person who sins will die (Ezekiel 18:20).”
Since the law of God’s holiness requires that sin’s offenses be paid for by death, this means that the one who has offended must die to satisfy the judgment imposed upon him by the law.
However, God in His grace also stipulated in His law that a substitution could be made for the offender—that is, the sinner could avoid paying the penalty for his own violations of God’s law if he could find Someone else who was willing to die in his place.
But in order to qualify as such a substitution, this Someone could not be a person who was himself a sinner—he would have to be Someone without guilt in order to satisfy everyone of God’s specific rules for holiness. The only Person who has ever lived who could meet these demands was Jesus Christ, God’s Son.
Therefore, God sent Jesus into the world to live a life of sinless perfection, a life which would fulfill all of the righteous demands of the law. Then Jesus died an agonizing death on the cross—a death which paid sin’s penalty, and one which could be substituted for the death required of each and every sinner who would ever live.
In addition to paying the price for everyone’s sin through His substitutionary death, Jesus also conquered the power of death once and for all when He was raised from the dead to live again forever.
Although Jesus’ death paid the price for everyone’s sin, the payment for any individual’s penalty will not automatically be credited to him.
– First, he must come humbly before God, acknowledging that he has violated the laws of God and is unable to meet God’s demands for righteousness on his own, in order to receive by faith what Christ has done on his behalf.
– He can then exchange his sin for the gift of salvation that God has graciously made available to him through Christ’s sacrificial death.
– It is with this transaction that his spirit becomes “born again”; and it is at this time that God’s Spirit comes to live within him and begins teaching how to live like a child of God.

…For Making a Way for Us to God

This, then, is God’s glorious plan for providing us with a New Birth. If you aren’t sure if you have ever experienced it, then let me urge you to go to God, acknowledging the offenses which have kept you spiritually dead and alienated from Him, and ask Him, for Jesus’ sake, to remove them. When you do, the Holy Spirit will come to live within your spirit, and you will be “born again!”

Take as much time as you need at this station, and I will meet you back at the train whenever you are ready to travel again.

You can rejoice along with Third Day because you are “Born Again”…

All Aboard…For Salvation!

March 3, 2014 by Judy

All Aboard!

Woo-hoo! The time has finally come for us to embark upon our rocking and rolling trip through the Word of God. So far, we have gone over our travel tips and have gotten our itinerary all worked out. Now, here with our bags packed and our tickets in hand, it is time for us to board the Truth Train and depart for the first stop on our journey, the Salvation Station.

At this point, some of you may be wondering why a stop there is necessary at all. For those of you traveling in Group #1—those who may have already experienced salvation, or who may have been involved in the life of a church for many years—you may be thinking that you already have a sufficient grasp on the subject and a stop there would be a colossal waste of your time. While for those in Group #2—those traveling with us who may have come from unchurched or secular backgrounds, and who may have either made successes of life on their own or who may have been taught that, in life, there are no absolutes, truth is a subjective thing, and morality is something entirely relative to the situation at hand—you may be thinking to yourselves, “I’ve got it made, what do I need salvation from—or for?” And, for those traveling in Group #3—those who may be coming from other cultural or religious backgrounds, which may believe that salvation is something that is only attainable upon death, when your works are measured, and the good ones outweigh the bad ones—you may also be considering a stop at this station to be completely unnecessary.

However, a stop here could…
For those in Group #1: Make you aware that your present knowledge of salvation is limited, and reveal how that knowledge can be greatly expanded, both to your own advantage and to that of the Kingdom of God.
For those in Group #2: Prove that what you’ve been taught about truth, morality, and the meaning of life is incorrect; and convince you that you are a sinner and one who is indeed in need of salvation.
For those in Group #3: Help you see that your works, no matter how noble or altruistic they may have been, will never be good enough for you to earn your own salvation; and introduce you to the Person whose one work of atonement is the only one that has been deemed acceptable by God, thus making it the only one capable of securing the salvation that we all need.

Now, in just the short amount of time that it took to say that we’ve already reached our first stop, one which will prove to be most essential because it is here that we will learn what salvation is, what it does for us, and why we need it. As for finding out how we get it, that is something that we will discover when we reach the next stop on our tour—the New Birth Station.

Although those of you in Group #1 might prefer a complicated, detailed, or more theological definition of salvation, I think that it would be in the best interests of all who are traveling with us to start with the most basic one possible. Personally, I like the one I found in my little Webster’s pocket dictionary, for it defines salvation simply as “a saving or a being saved” or as “a person or thing that saves.” I like these definitions because “a saving” implies an act, “a being saved” implies a process; and “a person or thing that saves” implies that salvation is not something that we can do for ourselves—it is something that must come from a source outside of us. Essentially, this is what Biblical Salvation is all about:

It is about the one-time act of faith that makes a person a child of God;
It is about the life-long process of spiritual growth which follows; one that transforms the character and behavior of that person into that of a child of God; and,
It is about Jesus, the One outside of us who will be doing all of the saving.

“Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.”–Proverbs 8:33

As simple as all this may seem on the surface, please don’t let the simplicity of it keep you from the realization that SALVATION IS REALLY A BIG DEAL! In fact, it is the only legitimate, divinely-authorized plan and process by which a Holy God takes a Sinner—someone who was…

…dead in the trespasses and sins in which [he] once walked, following the course of this world…carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and [was] by nature [a child] of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Eph. 2:1-3)…

…and not only adopts him or her into His family as His very own child, but also makes that child a Joint-Heir with His own Son, Jesus! Wow! Just imagine, going from alienation to acceptance, from slavery to freedom, from unrighteousness to holiness, and from certain death to life everlasting!

Just how does He make this happen? Through a three-stage process that we will come to know as:

Salvation, Part I—Which is our Redemption;
Salvation, Part II—Which is our Sanctification; and,
Salvation, Part III—Which is our Glorification.

About Redemption…

Since our DOT for Redemption is—to pay off, as a debt; to buy back or recover; to ransom or to obtain the release of a captive by paying the demanded price; to restore to favor—

Redemption, for us, is the act by which our sin debt is paid; an act making us righteous in the sight of God and setting us free from the penalty and power of sin so we can be legally adopted as His children.

This act is a necessity for us because, while God is holy, due to the sin nature we all inherited from our first set of parents, Adam and Eve, we are not. Therefore, before any adoption can take place, something has to be done about the problem of sin in our lives so that we can be reconciled to God and become holy like Him.

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” (Heb. 9:27)

While most of us are all too quick to deny that such a problem exists, it is a spiritual reality that from the day of our births to the day of our deaths, we are busy acquiring a “rap sheet” full of offenses against God–either through our thoughts, words, or deeds, we are repeatedly violating the laws of God’s righteousness, violations which are all too judiciously being transcribed into our “permanent records.” This means that we are all lawbreakers who are on the run from God, totally unaware of the day looming before us when we will be apprehended and called upon to appear in His court for judgment.

Sadly, and all too often, either because we don’t realize or believe we are sinners, or because we think we will be able to appeal to God on the basis of our morality or relatively good works, we mistakenly think it safe to put this day of reckoning off until after our deaths. But this is a disastrous decision which will leave us standing before the righteous Judge of the universe, alone, guilty, and without any legal representation whatsoever. Once the charges against us have been read, and our appeals have been proven to be without merit, this Just Judge will have no other choice but to honor the law and sentence us to the death that it demands—a death which will mean our eternal separation from God and all things holy.

But there is a way that such a terrible outcome can be avoided. You see, this righteous Judge is also the God of love, grace, and mercy—the One who is “… not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9)”—and because of that, He has made a way to provide an Advocate, sort of a court appointed attorney, to plead the cases of all those who will come before Him and acknowledge the crimes of which they are guilty—if they will do so before they die! This Advocate is Jesus, the Son of God, and He can represent a sinner before God because He came to earth, lived a sinless life that met the righteous demands of God’s law, and then died an agonizing death on the Cross in order to pay off the sin debt owed by every human being who has ever lived. Through the substitution of His death for their deaths, which the law calls for, He is able to clear the charges against them and to offer them a pardon, without so much as even a fine to pay! Once pardoned, and with their sin records expunged by the blood of Christ, they can stand righteous before God, and then can be legally adopted as His spiritual children!

Take Advantage of This Offer While You Can

About Sanctification…

Since our Dot for Sanctification is—to set apart as holy; to consecrate, or to devote to sacred use—

Sanctification, for us, is the process whereby a new child of God is set apart for the sacred or holy service of God.

In reality, this is the life-long schooling in righteousness that every child of God must undergo if he or she is to realize the eternal purpose for which they were created. It begins at the moment of adoption when the Holy Spirit of God comes to live within the heart of each new child, and He begins to teach him what it means to be a child of God. He does this by:

Training him in the laws of God and then empowering him to obey those laws;
Reproducing the character of Christ in him through the development of the fruit of the Spirit–or the character qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control;
Empowering him to carry out the work of Christ through the various giftings for service imparted by the very same Spirit;
Teaching him how to worship God, and how to overcome His enemies through prevailing prayer and persistent praise; and,
Helping him learn to die to the things of the flesh so that he can learn to live by the power of the Spirit.

This training is designed to totally transform every child of God, until he thinks, speaks, and acts like Jesus; and which, when completed, will prepare him ultimately for his graduation into the glorious and eternal presence of God, his Father.

About Glorification…

Since our Dot for Glorification is—to give glory to, to honor; to extol; to praise highly—

Glorification is what we will experience when, upon our physical deaths, our earthly bodies are replaced by heavenly or glorified ones, and we are ushered into the presence of God where we will receive the inheritance He has promised to His children.

As the legitimate, blood-bought children of God, we will be recognized and honored in heaven and share in the same glory that is accorded to Christ. Plus, having been prepared and equipped through our earthly training process, we will be ready to move into positions of authority as co-regents or rulers with Christ, when He sets up His kingdom, first on earth and later in eternity.

WOW! As you can see, SALVATION REALLY IS A BIG DEAL—in fact, it is the BIGGEST and the BEST DEAL ever to be offered! So, how do we go about taking advantage of such a great deal? Well, that is something we will find out about at our next stop, where we will learn all about the New Birth. Until then, though, it is back on the train for everyone–so all aboard!

Laura Story reminds us of “What A Savior” we have…

Loose Threads Require Redemption…

September 10, 2013 by Judy

Our Loose Threads Require Redemption by Christ

If I had to choose a favorite book in the New Testament, it would be a tough choice between the books of Romans and Ephesians but, in the end, I think I would have to go with Ephesians. That’s because, in its six short chapters, Paul lays out for us God’s grand plan for all humanity and in case you haven’t picked up on this yet, I am all about understanding His “grand plan.” In fact, I am so eager and determined to learn as much as I can about it that I have become very much like the little kid who tags along after her father, nagging him for answers to questions that would drive most dads to distraction; questions which, in the case of my heavenly Father, would sound something like this: “Papa, Papa, why did you make the world? Papa, Papa, why did you make people? Papa, Papa, why are some people mean while others are nice? Papa, Papa, why do people have to die? and most importantly, Papa, Papa, why did Jesus have to die?” Although I am getting up in years now, I am pleased to be able to say that my faith is still that of a childlike variety, meaning that when I ask questions, I need answers that are simple, straightforward, and understandable—and that’s just what I get in the book of Ephesians.

Although it is filled with some of Paul’s best run-on and seemingly complicated sentences, when you get right down to it, Ephesians isn’t all that difficult to understand: in its first three chapters, we are told what God has done in the heavenly realms to make us His children, and then, in the last three chapters, we are told how we, as God’s children, are supposed to behave. Pretty simple and straightforward. My favorite passage is Ephesians 1:3-14 and although it’s a passage that we have looked at before, it is such an important one that I think we need to go over it again a little more thoroughly. For, if I was asking my Heavenly Papa about the who, what, where, how, when, and why of life, I have every confidence that He would direct me to this passage and say, “I’m glad you asked child, it’s all right here…”

I think that you will agree that by breaking down the passage in this way, it makes it much easier for us to pick out the main points in God’s plan for mankind; a plan which was already in place even before God spoke the first “Let there be…” of creation, and one which called for:

Children who would ultimately be able to stand before Him holy, or morally pure, and blameless, or free from the guilt of trespasses and sins;
Children to whom He could reveal His will and plan for the ages; and,
Children who, because of their right standing with the Father, would be entitled to inherit all of His riches; an inheritance which would be guaranteed to them by the Holy Spirit of God himself, once they had come to faith in Christ.

Sadly, in our visits together recently, and as a result of our journeys back to the Garden of Eden, we have seen how Adam and Eve’s one decision to disobey God not only left us with a mess of loose threads to deal with, but it also resulted in the apparent negation of each of these aspects of God’s plan. As a result of this sin, and…

In spite of being pre-designed for the glorious destiny of becoming a son of God, Man was reduced to a state of slavery to Satan and to the selfish desires of his flesh;
Instead of being able to stand before God in a holy and blameless state, Man found that he could only stand before Him as a guilty sinner, and as someone who was condemned to death;
Instead of being capable of understanding God’s will and plan for the ages, Man’s mind became debased while his understanding became darkened by sin; and,
Instead of standing to inherit eternal life and the boundless riches of God, Man found that the only thing that he could expect to inherit was hell and its torment, the result of his eternal separation from God.

From all appearances, it would seem that as a result of man’s sin, God’s grand plan had been completely run aground. But wait–-things aren’t always what they appear to be! You see, there is still one aspect of God’s “grand plan” that we haven’t discussed yet, and that is the integral part that God intended for Redemption to play! Yes, redemption–it’s one of the most beautiful words in all the world, and that’s because it means:

To buy or get back; recover—implying that something has been lost or stolen;
To pay off, as a debt—implying that someone owes someone else something that they don’t have the resources to pay off;
To ransom, that is, to obtain the release of a captive by paying the demanded price—implying that someone is in bondage but has no way to obtain freedom;
To deliver from sin—implying that someone is living an impure or immoral life but has no power to stop or change;
To fulfill a promise—implying that someone has given his word to deliver the relief that is needed;
To make amends or atone for—implying that someone has broken laws and committed injustices for which he is unable to make restitution; and,
To restore oneself to favor—implying that someone has lost his reputation and his relationship with someone who is important in his life.

What makes it even more beautiful is that this is exactly what Jesus did for us when He died on the Cross in our places; for, it was through His death that:

Jesus recovered all that man had lost in the fall;
Jesus paid off the sin debt that each of us had accumulated and couldn’t pay ourselves;
Jesus paid the price required to ransom us from our slavery to Satan, sin, and death;
Jesus freed us from the penalty of sin, restored our souls to their rightful positions, and gave us His Spirit to enable us to live in victory over sin;
Jesus kept the promise God made to Eve to provide a Savior who would crush the head of the Serpent;
Jesus’ blood made amends and atoned for all of the laws we had broken and the injustices we had done; and,
Jesus restored us to favor with the Father.

Redemption is truly amazing, isn’t it? When you think about it, though, the most amazing part is not that a loving God would create man and then offer him so many wonderful blessings in return for obedience borne out of faith. The most amazing part of redemption is that even after man had spurned God’s generous offer of Sonship, and had turned from God to go his own way, God still made a way to take the one who had rejected Him, pay for his pardon with the blood of His only Son, then make that man His son, and give him everything that He had promised in the beginning! That is something that only the God whom I know as my heavenly Father, could and would do. And in response to that, all I can say is, “Papa, Papa, Thank You so much!

The Talley Trio reminds us of all that redemption has done for us in…”His Life for Mine”

His Truth, My Voice

The reflections of a reluctant prophet

Tag Archives: Child of God