-
Service: Continuing the Work of Christ in the World
Now that we’re about halfway through our Workout Program, let’s pause briefly to review the progress we have made thus far. We started out this regimen with four exercises in Salvation—exercises through which we learned that… Salvation is obtained through the one-time spiritual event known as the New Birth; an act taking us from sin-enslaved and hell-bound sinners to forgiven and heaven-bound sons and daughters of God; While everyone has been Predestined, or pre-designed, by God to become one of His children, only those who elect to receive His offer of Salvation will do so; and, Once that decision is made and our spiritual adoption is finalized, our Salvation is forever…
-
Sanctification: Restoring the Soul through Worship
So far, through our exercises in Sanctification, we have learned that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to restore our emotions through Prayer and our minds through the study and application of the Word of God—a ministry bringing our hearts into alignment with that of the Father and transforming our minds into ones more like Christ’s. But this only encompasses the restoration of two of the components of our souls—leaving the third one, our all-important and powerful wills, for the Spirit to deal with. And deal with them, He must; because unlike our emotions which are simply expressions of how we feel, and our minds which merely reveal…
-
Sanctification: Restoring the Soul through the Word of God
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…
-
Sanctification: The Work of the Holy Spirit
As promised in our introduction to Sanctification, this workout time will be given over to becoming better acquainted with the Holy Spirit, our Trainer and Coach for this entire series of exercises. The way in which we will do this is by asking and answering the following questions… His Person—Who is He? His Position—What does He do? His Power—How does He do it? and, His Presence—How does He relate this to each one of us? His Person: Who is He? Although some may have mistakenly thought of the Holy Spirit as nothing more than an emanation of God’s power, or some impersonal spiritual force from God, in reality, He is a Person—the equal, yet distinctive third…
-
Sanctification: Regeneration Perfected
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…
