Freedom is Good News Part 164

“If you belong to Christ then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:29)

Here we have a classic, “if / then” statement.  So, in order to consider whether or not you are included in the “then” statement, you must be able to claim the “if” part.  Do you belong to Christ?  Only you can answer this question.  The reality of it is between you and God.  He knows your heart.  He knows every aspect of your heart.  Do you?

It may be hard to understand why this ancient Hebrew might be claimed as our father.  The words “Abraham’s seed” mean that we are his offspring.  But we cannot even claim that unless we know that we “belong to Christ”.  So perhaps we should take a look at what that might mean.

First of all we must understand that if a person belongs to another then they are a possession; perhaps a slave or a bond servant.  In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians concerning the body he writes, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own, you were bought at a price.”  What was that price with which we were bought?  Peter informs us of that purchase price in 1Peter 1:18-19, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”

Yes, the purchase price that is demanded in payment for our sins and to buy us back (ransom us) from death and give us eternal life is the “precious blood of Christ”.  Have you come to grips with that understanding?  This is a pretty heavy thought for us to get our minds around.  But get around it we must!!

If you would “belong to Christ” then you have to: know that you are a sinner who has broken the “good, holy and righteous laws of God”, believe and understand that the blood of our Savior is necessary for our redemption and because of point 1 and 2, you must repent of those sins and be baptized for the remission of those sins, just as Peter told the crowd in Acts 2:38.  Those steps are not hard to do – at least not physically.  But to do them from the heart, which means that we have humbled ourselves before our God, takes a true movement of the Holy Spirit.  To do that from the heart takes a great commitment to live according to God’s ways and to begin to love Him with all our heart, strength and life.

That is what it takes to ‘belong to God’.  “But hey”, you ask, “What does that mean for me?”  It means that you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.  We will look at the promises to Abraham of which we will be heirs to, perhaps next time.  But for now, let us read the statement Paul makes just prior to this one in Galatians 3:29.  In 3:26 he writes, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”  O my!!  Sons of God – sons of the creator of all the universe, sons of the Living God who originally blessed Abraham.  Wow, that is good news!!

Freedom is Good News Part 132

How much are you worth?  No, I am not interested in your monetary value, but I am interested in the intrinsic value of your life!  We could start off with a very familiar scripture and realize that we are “worth more than many sparrows” (Matt. 10:31); but that is not telling us very much.

So, how much is your life worth?  “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.”  We have been looking at Isaiah 53 in our previous articles and this quote is a continuation of that piece of scripture; it is found in verse 5.

I had mentioned that Isaiah 53 is arguably the greatest prophecy of the crucifixion of our Savior in the entirety of the bible.  It fits so closely that many Rabbinical Jews do not know what to do with it – for they reject Jesus Christ as their Messiah and yet…..it fits!!

So, I ask again, how much is your life worth?  This “suffering Servant” of the LORD God, this Savior of all mankind, was nailed to a wooden cross for us; “He was pierced for our transgressions”.  This Son of God was beaten, spit upon and mocked; “He was crushed for our iniquities”.  This Redeemer died for you and for me; “Upon him was the punishment that brought us peace”.  “And with his stripes we are healed”, healed from the disease of unrighteousness, healed from the sins that lead to death! 

Do you begin to see just how much your life is worth?  God desires our redemption!  God desires that we accept His free gift of grace!  God, our Father, sent His only begotten Son as a ransom for our lives!  The bible tells us that God is “unwilling that any should perish, but that all might come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)  The love of God is not just good news, it is the greatest news that the ears of mankind could hear.

Isaiah continues in verse 6, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the LORD had laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”  God showed His love for us even when we were yet sinners; even when we turned away from Him; even when we desired nothing but our own ways to walk in!

“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.”  Have you ever wanted your own way?  Have you ever argued your own opinion to the point where you almost lost a friend?  By our human standards, Jesus had every reason to “open His mouth” and state His case – but He didn’t.  He submitted to the will of His father and, “He humbled Himself becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Phil. 2:8)  Hallelujah, what a Savior! 

And so I ask you, what is your life worth in God’s eyes?

Yes, There is Good News! Part 3

We have been talking (alright so I’ve been writing and you’ve been reading) about the topic of “righteousness”.  It is a term that means “acting in an upright manner” and being “faithful to another’s expectations so as to form a good relationship”.

On the one hand, God is perfect in righteousness and is always faithful to fulfill whatever promises He has given to us (in other words, He is faithful to fulfill our expectations).  The problem here is, as I see it, can we be righteous so as to fulfill what God expects of us?

Perhaps we should look at a couple of scriptures?  In Matthew 5:20 Jesus says, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the scribes, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  But hey, we all know that the Pharisees and scribes were self-righteous and Jesus was always berating them for their hypocrisy (“woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites…. See Matthew 23:13, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27 and 29).  So then, let us examine ourselves and repent of our own hypocrisy.  Perhaps in that respect we are better than the Pharisees.

But in the same chapter of Matthew in 5:48, Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”.  UH OH!!  Really?  Are we to be perfect as God is perfect?  I think I can speak for all of us in saying that this is way too tall an order.  What’s a believer to do? 

Well, herein lies our first true view of what we’ve been striving to see, this is our introduction to the “good news”!  Because there is no way for us to attain to this perfection as God is perfect.  There is no way for us to try and put any of our righteousness up against God’s righteousness.  We lose every time and we lose in a huge way.  In Isaiah 64:6 it says, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”  Indeed, we have no way, in and of ourselves to stand in the presence of God.  We need a redeemer. 

What does it mean to redeem?  We may take our pop cans, for which we paid a nickel, back to the grocery store to have them redeemed.  The store will buy them back.  They redeem them.  So, redeemed means to buy back.  Our lives, wrapped up in sin are like the empty pop cans.  They are not worth anything until they are redeemed!  And where do we find redemption? 

Ephesians 1:7, “In Him (Jesus Christ) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.”  Can I get an Amen!!