Made Alive With Christ

This week I would like to start a study on Ephesians chapter 2. It continues what I shared from chapter 1 last week.

Ephesians 2:1-10 NLT

Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins. 2 You used to live just like the rest of the world, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. 3 All of us used to live that way, following the passions and desires of our evil nature. We were born with an evil nature, and we were under God's anger just like everyone else.

4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so very much, 5 that even while we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God's special favor that you have been saved!) 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ, and we are seated with him in the heavenly realms — all because we are one with Christ Jesus. 7 And so God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus.

8 God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

All of us started off as sinners. Many stand as moral and good in human eyes, but still get counted as sinners. Why is this? When looking for human approval only, it can turn selfish fast. We have to do the work ourselves for the reputation we want. God looks at the heart to determine why we chose to be moral and good.

God is not mad at anyone who chooses not to accept Him or Jesus, sent to die on the cross for us. He gave us a way back after man disobeyed in the garden because He loves us. We are dead to Him when not accepting Him and in sin. We gain the eternal life promised by God only by accepting that Jesus died on the Cross and shed His blood to cleanse us. Even Jesus appeared dead to God when He took on our sin before dying. Jesus cried out when He lost His connection to Father God. We have that same disconnect and only Jesus can reconnect it. Jesus resurrected has conquered all and is alive by His Father’s side, where we can be too.

God created us and He longs to bring us back into the family. Our spirit longs to connect with Him again. Don’t fill that longing with worldly things that keep fading away and disappointing. All you have to do is accept Jesus and you are saved. Nothing you do will ever meet the requirements, but praise God, Jesus paid the required price.

Again, what are you waiting for? If you feel empty inside without finding the answer, run to Jesus. If you already accepted Jesus and find yourself off track from His Word or simply feeling disconnected, run to Jesus. He will take you in His arms. You will be part of His family for eternity.

How We Become One With Christ

Ephesians is a great book to study to learn how God’s plan worked to save us to how we can stand and fight the battle with Him. Ephesians 1 talks of God’s plan and how we gain redemption and forgiveness due to His love and grace. He used His Son as the perfect sacrifice to pay the bond price to free us from the slavery of sin.

Eph 1:3-14 NLT

3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

9 God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure. 10 And this is his plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ — everything in heaven and on earth. 11 Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.

12 God's purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. 13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God's guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so that we would praise and glorify him.

We have the opportunity of knowing God when we are in Christ. He chose us for salvation, adoption, and forgiveness. Through Him we can gain insight, the gifts of the Spirit, power to do God’s will and the hope of living forever with Christ by trusting God and accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior. He chose us first and if we trust Him, we will show this by choosing His way rather than our own. We can never take credit for any of this because it is a gift only gained when we accept Jesus Christ. Our only part is to trust God and then we can learn who He is.

We do not have the means to save ourselves from sin. Jesus paid our bond by dying on the Cross. His blood was worthy of paying the price for everyone, the sacrifices the Jews performed proved temporary and foreshadowed the redemption price paid by Jesus. All slaves are freed with a redemption price and with sin it always required blood, so Jesus let His flow for all of us.

Blood sacrifice turns some people off, but God chose this method. When you think of it, blood is the life force of all living things. All animals have blood and all plants have some sap like flow that moves the required nutrients for life travel throughout the body. Jesus claimed to be the way, the truth and the life. Through Him we can become reconciled once again to God and freed from bondage to sin. He paid the only price that could defeat sin for everyone.

What are you waiting for? We still have time to repent and accept Jesus, but none of us know when the time runs out. Don’t wait to feel better or worthy. Go to Jesus as you are with your confession of true repentance and He will adopt you into His family, cleansed to live a new life because God loves us all and wishes to lose no one.

I’m a Conqueror Because Christ Strengthens Me

Romans 8:35-39 NLT

Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? 36(Even the Scriptures say, "For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep." Psalm 44:22) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. 39 Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing will separate us from Christ unless we turn away ourselves. If we keep following Him we will see the overwhelming victory promised in verse 37 above. Don’t expect every victory to come immediately, but they all come at the right time. No matter how great or little the successes you have seen following Christ, remember them all during the dark battles that seem to have no end. He is never too late.

1 John 5:4 NLT

For every child of God defeats this evil world by trusting Christ to give the victory.

If we do not trust Him, then we will see the defeat by trying to fix things our own way. We need His strength to overcome the world and the schemes against us in the spiritual realm. With the power of Jesus we can bind what is against us and loosen what is for us in agreement with the Word. Trust Him and invoke His Word against what is coming. He will do the rest because it is His power that not only saved us, but will keep us standing firm with Him.

Philippians 4:13 NLT

For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need.

We need to believe Christ will give us the power to do whatever He commands of us. He will give us the strength to overcome whatever obstacles try to stop us from doing His will. If you love Jesus, you will want to obey Him and He will give you the power to do so beyond anything you could imagine on your own. Don’t pray for easy things to do. Pray that He strengthens you to go beyond yourself with His power to show His glory to the world in all you do.

Ephesians 6:10 NLT

A final word: Be strong with the Lord's mighty power.

Whenever you feel overwhelmed, run to Jesus. I do this a lot some days because life can be hard, but the battle is worth fighting with Christ. Let Him help you be the person He meant you to be. Walk in faith. He will never leave you to your own strength.

Not a Slave to Sin

Colossians 1:13-14 NLT

For he has rescued us from the one who rules in the kingdom of darkness, and he has brought us into the Kingdom of his dear Son. 14 God has purchased our freedom with his blood and has forgiven all our sins.

Galatians 3:13 NLT

But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."

When we accept Christ He pulls us from the darkness into the light by God’s grace and love. The full law before Christ could save no one, but caused condemnation for doing wrong. Jesus has abolished the curse on the Law by becoming the final and only worthy sacrifice to do so. Once clean we should not have to worry about the enemy or finding ourselves in sin again.

Romans 6:11 NLT

So you should consider yourselves dead to sin and able to live for the glory of God through Christ Jesus.

1 John 5:18 NLT

We know that those who have become part of God's family do not make a practice of sinning, for God's Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot get his hands on them.

There is still a Law to follow: God’s civil and moral law. As a child of God we have the power to fulfill this law with no condemnation. We cannot become a slave to sin again because of accepting Christ and what He did for us. However, once a child of God we need to learn to act like one. With the curse removed we will want to follow God’s rules to please Him and gain the ability to show His love to the rest of the world.

However, we should not expect to keep on sinning just because God’s love and grace will clean us. No, this shows a rebellious side to God much like a child disobeying his father.

Romans 6:1-2 NLT

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?

From the beginning it is a journey with God to learn the truth. He loves us and wants us to relate with Him to know the truth on how to live a free and abundant life. We should not want to return to wallowing in the sins we enjoyed before accepting Jesus.

John 8:31-32 NLT

Jesus said to the people who believed in him, "You are truly my disciples if you keep obeying my teachings.  32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Run to God as soon as you feel yourself slipping. Pay attention to His warning signs and you will stay on the path of truth away from sin. God wants us to stay His children and will teach us all we need to know if we let Him. What are you waiting for?

A New Creation

2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

When we accept Christ we become clean and move on in life with a new outlook. Sure we will find things to clean up as we continue walking with Christ, but that’s part of the journey. It’s no different from a little kid that has a bath and then runs out to play in the dirt. We don’t always get it right. However, with Christ we have the direction to get us back on track, to keep us growing as our new selves, planted in His Word.

1 Thessalonians 1:4 NLT

We know that God loves you, dear brothers and sisters, and that he chose you to be his own people.

God already chose us to be His, but due to His love He never forces this on us. We have the opportunity to choose and show love back to Him. He will teach us how to love through the relationship we gain with Him upon accepting Him. Part of our new creation includes knowing what love really is and how to share it with the world.

1 Peter 1:23 NLT

For you have been born again. Your new life did not come from your earthly parents because the life they gave you will end in death. But this new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.

This new life goes beyond our physical side. It’s our soul, our innermost being, which reforms us to match what God intended. The love of God lets light flow into us to remove the hardness and darkness.

Col 2:10 NLT

and you are complete through your union with Christ. He is the Lord over every ruler and authority in the universe.

Once reunited with Christ we have a fullness we longed for. Nothing else fills in that void within other than Christ. It is where He will have the Holy Spirit dwell to help us live as our new selves. He will not leave us to our own devices. God wants a full relationship with us and will help us live as part of His family.

I found Jesus is the answer to many things. He’s the key I needed. Life hasn’t changed with its problems and issues, but my view of them has changed as God made me this new creation and keeps teaching me greater things. I haven’t stopped following Him because without Him I’d wind up where I was. I don’t want to go back there.

If you don’t feel your relationship with God is deep enough, take a timeout where you are alone with God. Talk to Him and be sure to be still and listen. Even Jesus took time to go alone and pray to be with His Father. This is part of the relationship. Do it daily.

God’s Word is Our Sword

Last week I talked about the Armor of God and the only weapon is the Sword of the Spirit, which is God’s Word. God tells us to meditate on this.

Joshua 1:8 NLT

Study this Book of the Law continually. Meditate on it day and night so you may be sure to obey all that is written in it. Only then will you succeed.

God promises success with Him if we follow the laws and rules He has made. We can defeat the enemy who knows the Word if we also know it well. Jesus did this three times when tempted by Satan. He showed us the way to use it.

Our success will not always mean we get better physical things in this world. Our success is tied to following Jesus no matter how we feel or what life is throwing at us. You might not see results, but how you handle any situation will be noticed by others. Either they will see God or see your selfish side. Don’t expect this to be easy. I fall on my face a lot due to my flesh not agreeing with the Spirit and taking the lead. Thankfully, we just need to step back and use God’s power to overcome, not our own. The Word is His and He will guide us on how to use it.

We should know and act on the Word like the following psalms. They did so even when the trials of life made them cry out for restoration of their lives.

Psalm 119:15-16 NLT

I will study your commandments and reflect on your ways.

16 I will delight in your principles and not forget your word.

Ps 119:105-112

Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.

106 I've promised it once, and I'll promise again: I will obey your wonderful laws.

107 I have suffered much, O LORD; restore my life again, just as you promised.

108 LORD, accept my grateful thanks and teach me your laws.

109 My life constantly hangs in the balance, but I will not stop obeying your law.

110 The wicked have set their traps for me along your path, but I will not turn from your commandments.

111 Your decrees are my treasure; they are truly my heart's delight.

112 I am determined to keep your principles, even forever, to the very end.

Do not expect to know it all at once. Peel it layer by layer so you can learn each part with the Spirit’s guidance. He will lead you to the truth if He knows you truly want to follow Him.

The Word of God is our weapon against the enemy. When God allowed Satan to knock the wind out of Job to test his faith, Job stood on the Word and Spirit of God.

Job 33:4 NLT

For the Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

Stand firm with God’s Word at the ready in your heart and mind.

The Armor of God

Last week I talked about how we could stand up to our enemy using God’s power, the Holy Spirit’s counsel, and the armor of God. I want to talk about the armor today.

Eph 6:10-18 NLT

A final word: Be strong with the Lord's mighty power. 11 Put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies and tricks of the Devil. 12 For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms.

13 Use every piece of God's armor to resist the enemy in the time of evil, so that after the battle you will still be standing firm. 14 Stand your ground, putting on the sturdy belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness. 15 For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News, so that you will be fully prepared.   16 In every battle you will need faith as your shield to stop the fiery arrows aimed at you by Satan.   17 Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 Pray at all times and on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all Christians everywhere.

It requires all the pieces. God will supply the armor; we have to put it on. This is a spiritual battle. Each piece has its own use in this battle:

·         Belt of Truth – Use God’s truth, not your own.

·         Body Armor – this is listed as a breastplate in most versions because we are to face our enemy to show him the righteousness of Jesus which cloaks in as a follower.

·         Shoes – we are to share what we know of Jesus by using our testimonies. Don’t go barefoot because that only helps the enemy keep you from helping others in Jesus’ name.

·         Shield – this is our faith and it can quench the fiery arrows Satan throws at you to make you doubt or even turn and run from what God has given you to do.

·         Helmet – it is your salvation and will help protect your mind from Satan’s lies.

·         Sword of the Spirit – your only weapon and this is the Word of God. You can’t use this if you are not studying your Bible daily.

We are part of an army. We can get help from fellow Christians. We are to be praying for all Christians to stand firm against the enemy. All of us have the same mission, to grow as a disciple of Christ and to share what we know with the world. Each of us has our own ministry field, big or small, where we are given opportunities to show who Jesus is by our actions and our words.

If you feel weak, run to God in prayer for the help you need. He may lead you to a verse or a person who will help you overcome. Go to an elder of your church for prayer if you feel the need. Be patient with yourself and never give up. If you turn to flee, Satan has a free shot at your back. We are to stand on the power of God and the Holy Spirit and pray for other Christians so they can do so, too. Do not let the enemy get a free shot.

Do whatever it takes to stay in all the armor of God and let His power direct you in refuting the enemy.