2 Corinthians 10:4-5 - The first thing we need to know about the battle for our mind, is that the main targets which must be destroyed are the fortresses in our mind, or called strongholds. Strongholds are negative patters of thought which are burned into our minds, either through repetition over time or through one-time traumatic experiences. The worldly stimulation we were exposed to was both brief and prevailing.
We must capture the tempting thought in the first frame or it will probably capture us. Once our consideration of a temptation has triggered an emotional response, we will act upon that choice and own that behavior. We may resent our actions or claim that we are not responsible for what we do, but we are responsible for our actions at this stage, because we failed to take a tempting thought captive when it first appeared at the threshold of our mind.
If we continue to repeat an act for more than six weeks, we will form a habit, and if we exercise that habit long enough, a stronghold will be established. Once a stronghold of thought and response is entrenched in our mind, our ability to choose and to act contrary to that pattern is virtually nonexistent, and negative thoughts and actions we cannot control, spring from a stronghold. Simply putting on the armor of God at this stage will not solve our dilemma, these strongholds are already entrenched and fortified.
If the strongholds in our mind are the result of conditioning, then we can be reconditioned by the renewing of our mind. Anything that has been learned, can be unlearned, but we are also up against Satan and his devil spirits who are scheming to fill our mind with thoughts which are opposed to our ambassadorship.
Colossians 3:2 - The natural tendency of the flesh is to set our affection on the things of the earth and the things of the flesh and allow those things to rule our mind. We are not to hold the things on the earth so near and dear so as to rule our minds. Paul’s desire is that we refocus our minds, renewing of our minds day by day.
Paul would not have us be defeated believers, depression is Satan’s weapon to defeat us. Depression is a rush of negative attitude that results from a vacuum of joy. Joy is the opposite of negative attitude. Depression is negative attitude based on fleshly happenstance in the absence of hope. Is the primary focus of your mind on the circumstances at hand in your life?
When it comes to a mind set of joy, Paul takes us to a re-direction of thought and its up to each of us individually. It is our responsibility to focus our own minds appropriately and according to Paul its a redirection of thought based upon the accomplishments of Christ. The cause of depression is almost always related to fleshly circumstance, people, things and worry over those three.
Galatians 4:21 - Can a person’s righteous works be added to the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ himself, in order to arrive at a greater degree of righteousness than the righteousness already belonging to our Savior? Would more righteousness be needed than the Savior’s righteousness, when it comes to the human race? Is God requiring that we add our righteous works to Christ’s righteousness that we might become righteous indeed, or is Christ’s righteousness the only righteousness from God’s perspective his saints will ever need?
The lunacy of desiring to be under the law was in the fact that the Galatians actually thought they could perform the law in a manner that would make them more righteous before God. They were trying to perfect their righteousness, to cap off the righteousness they have in God’s sight. They thought they could enhance their righteousness through their performance, through their rule-keeping, and they were using the law.
God used the faithfulness OF his son and the faith of the Galatians in his son’s faithfulness to have resolved God’s justice for their sins as the criterion. If our only righteousness in the sight of God comes through our union with his perfectly righteous son, is it not idiotic thinking to suppose that our righteous works can ENHANCE the righteousness that belongs to Christ, to whom we have been joined? The Galatians were not falling back into sinful practice, they were falling back into law practice. They were falling back into the mindset that their righteousness before God was tied to their performance.
Philippians 3:2-3 - Paul warned to guard against those who would promote a righteousness through performance idea. Is it not interesting that the Gentiles had been considered dogs? Now you come to Paul speaking to the saints in Philippi, and it is the unbelieving Israelites who are considered dogs. Beware of Dogs; Beware of Evil Workers; Beware of the Concision.
Just the fact that they were of the physical linage of Abraham did not cut the mustard as far as their righteous standing with God was concerned. Paul is simply drawing a contrast between those who were relying upon ritual for righteousness and those who place no confidence whatsoever in their flesh for a right standing before God.
Paul’s point here is circumcision apart from faith is nothing more than concision. It is nothing more than mutilation. You see, the concision, although it sounds like the word circumcision, the concision is a reference to those false teachers who thought that ritual, who thought they could do something, perform something and the ritual here was circumcision.
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 - The first thing we need to know about the battle for our mind, is that the main targets which must be destroyed are the fortresses in our mind, or called strongholds. Strongholds are negative patters of thought which are burned into our minds, either through repetition over time or through one-time traumatic experiences. The worldly stimulation we were exposed to was both brief and prevailing.
We must capture the tempting thought in the first frame or it will probably capture us. Once our consideration of a temptation has triggered an emotional response, we will act upon that choice and own that behavior. We may resent our actions or claim that we are not responsible for what we do, but we are responsible for our actions at this stage, because we failed to take a tempting thought captive when it first appeared at the threshold of our mind.
If we continue to repeat an act for more than six weeks, we will form a habit, and if we exercise that habit long enough, a stronghold will be established. Once a stronghold of thought and response is entrenched in our mind, our ability to choose and to act contrary to that pattern is virtually nonexistent, and negative thoughts and actions we cannot control, spring from a stronghold. Simply putting on the armor of God at this stage will not solve our dilemma, these strongholds are already entrenched and fortified.
If the strongholds in our mind are the result of conditioning, then we can be reconditioned by the renewing of our mind. Anything that has been learned, can be unlearned, but we are also up against Satan and his devil spirits who are scheming to fill our mind with thoughts which are opposed to our ambassadorship.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19 - People continue to operate today in their thinking, nothings really changed, under the assumption that their sin is separating them from God. Many believe that they have to commit to abstain or commit to perform in order to be acceptable to God. If they sin in their thinking, they think God’s not going to accept them, that is how they reason it.
Many think they have sinned too many times to be acceptable to God. Or still others who may have made that “I will not sin” commitment over and over again and then broken those commitments, suppose it is to late for them anyway. Then you have the religious crowd who think their religious practices keep them in God’s favor. There are those who suppose church attendance merit’s some degree of favor with God. Others have I am doing the very best I can. So God will surely take note of my heart.
If an ounce of new reconciliation in this Age of Grace could be restored for anyone when it comes to the issue of their sins, then the degree of forgiveness that must be obtained in order to restore the reconciliation, is the very degree to which that individual refuses to believe that Christ accomplished it all. Paul’s good news message is hid from those people. They do not understand what reconciliation is all about.
They think that new sin needs a new measure of reconciliation, so they seek forgiveness on the installment plan. Is that not the golden thread woven through every denomination out there? The truth is, you could not obtain an ounce of forgiveness if you tried, because God has already forgiven you all. That is why Christ’s ambassadors have the responsibility and privilege of making the reality of the reconciliation Christ has already accomplished known to those who know nothing of it.
1 Corinthians 3:14-15 - Dying to self, is never portrayed as something optional, it is the reality of being born anew; unless we are willing to see our old lives crucified with Christ and begin to live anew in obedience to him. Dying to self is something you can take very literal; you will die in every way possible in order to be someone you are not.
The entire concept seems a bit strange to our natural eyes. Rather, dying to self means that the things of the old life are put to death, most especially the sinful ways and lifestyles we once engaged in. We see that we need to die to self, although our salvation is not dependent upon how well we accomplish this.
Yet, as ambassadors of the ministry of reconciliation, our witness is dependent upon how well we accomplish this. Dying to self is never portrayed as something optional, it is the reality of being born anew. Dying to self is something you can take very literal, you will die in every way possible in order to be someone you are not. Dying to self is a change in our principle action from what is by nature the exact opposite.
Dying to self is not fun or easy, but what is particularly difficult about fighting this tendency is that it is not exactly a behavior or action. It can certainly manifest itself in those forms, but underneath them is an attitude. Dying to self is a real change of mind and attitude towards sin itself and the cause of it.
1 Thessalonians 4:14 - Paul did not think the question of the status of the person between death and resurrection was a question that needed to be considered. The reason is that for Paul, those who die in Christ, their relationship with Christ is one of immediacy, because they have no awareness of the passing of time between their death and resurrection.
Death as we know it, would indeed be the end of our existence were it not for the fact of the resurrection. The second death differs from the first death, not in nature, but in results. The second death is permeant and irreversible extinction, because there is no awakening.
The second death is the death resulting from the final judgment which prevents evildoers from living in the new earth to come, a punishment that ultimately results in eternal, irreversible death. The stern punishment awaiting the enemies of righteousness, whose temporary resurrection results only in a return to death and its punishment, their full and final defeat. The wicked will be resurrected mortal in order to receive their punishment which will result in their ultimate annihilation.
Philippians 3:20 - Satan and his forces are playing a cover up game with Paul’s good news message, because they have a desire to keep people lost. For example, Satan and his forces have deceived a great many people into believing a negative view of the body in contrast to the soul, and a concept of salvation as interior experience rather than total transformation.
A great many people have been deceived into believing that their nature is dualistic, that is, consisting of a material, mortal body and a spiritual, immortal soul. Dualism has done such a serious harm in weakening our blessed hope of Christ ‘s appearing and in distorting our understanding of our citizenship in heaven.
The Bible never sees the flesh and the soul as two different forms of existence. Rather, they are manifestations of the same person, the ancient Hebrews could not conceive of one without the other. The two are indissolubly connected because the body is the outward form of the soul and the soul the inward life of the body. The body and soul are an indivisible unity; people are seen from two different perspectives.
The body is the physical reality of human existence; the soul is the vitality and personality of human existence. The fact that a person consists of various parts which are integrated, interrelated and functionally united, leaves no room for the notion of the soul being distinct from the body and thus removing the basis for the belief in the survival of the soul at the death of the body.
2 Corinthians 9:8 - Achieving God’s goals for our ambassadorship is learning to distinguish his goal, from his desire. It is a critical distinction, because it can spell the difference between success and failure. His goal is any specific result reflecting his purposes for our ambassadorship, that does not depend on people or circumstances beyond our ability.
The only person who can block his goal or render it uncertain or impossible is us, and if we adopt the attitude of cooperation with his goals, his goal can be reached. His desire is any specific result that depends on the cooperation of other people or the success of events or favorable circumstances we cannot control.
We cannot base our self-worth or our personal success on our desires, no matter how godly they may be, because we cannot control their fulfillment. When a desire is wrongly elevated to a goal, and that goal is frustrated, we must deal with all the anger, anxiety, and depression which may accompany that failure.
Dealing with the disappointments of unmet desires is a lot easier then dealing with the anger, anxiety, and depression of goals, we would do well to distinguish goals from desires. When we begin to align our goals with God’s goals for our ambassadorship, and our desires with his desires, we will rid our life of a lot of anger, anxiety, and depression.
Philippians 4:6-7 - We can know on a moment-by-moment basis if our ambassadorship is properly aligned with his truth. God has established a feedback system which is designed to grab our attention, so we can examine the validity of our goal.
That system is our emotions. When an experience leaves us feeling angry, anxious, or depressed, those emotional signposts are there to alert us that we may be cherishing a faulty goal. When our activity results in feelings of anger, it is usually because someone or something has blocked our goal.
Any goal which can be blocked by forces we cannot control (other then God’s goal) is not a healthy goal, because our success in that arena is out of our hands. Feelings of anger should prompt us to reexamine our ambassadorship, and the mental goals we have formulated to accomplish God’s message of reconciliation.
When we feel anxious in a task, our anxiety may be signaling the uncertainty of a goal we have chosen. We are wishing something will happen, but we have no guarantee that it will. We can control some of the factors, but not all of them.
When we base our future success on something that can never happen, we have an impossible goal. Our depression is a signal that our goal, no matter how noble, may never be reached. Depression often signals that we are desperately clinging to a goal we have little or no chance of achieving, and that is not a healthy goal.
2 Corinthians 10:3 - When we choose to walk according to the old identity, in which we were trained before becoming born anew, such behavior violates our ambassadorship. When this happens, we feel convicted because our behavior is not in keeping with who we really are. We commit sin when we willfully allow ourselves to act independent of our ambassadorship, as our old identity did as a matter of course.
So why do we still react as if our old identity is still in control of our behavior? Because, while we served under it, our old identity trained and conditioned our actions, reactions, emotional responses, thought patterns, memories and habits in our brain. Our worldly experiences thoroughly programmed our brain with thought patterns, memory traces, responses and habits.
Our brain still generates humanistic thoughts and ideas, and our old identity is that part of us which was trained and determined to succeed and survive by our own abilities. When we became born anew, God did not press the clear button in our brain, our old identity persists in suggesting ways to live independent of our ambassadorship of God’s reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 6:4 - God’s basic goal for our life, is character development. The tribulations we face are actually a means of achieving our supreme goal of maturity, because persevering tribulations is the doorway to proven character, which is his goal for us. Perhaps the greatest service performed by trails and tribulations in our lives is to reveal wrong goals.
It is during these times of pressure that our emotions raise their warning flags signaling blocked goals, uncertain goals and impossible goals which are based on our desires, instead of God’s goal for our ambassadorship. His plan is for us to hang in there and grow up, and tribulation just happens to be one of the primary stepping stones on the pathway.
By preparing our minds for action, we must be transformed by the renewing of our mind, by filling it with God’s truth. We need to practice threshold, first-frame thinking, evaluate every thought by the truth. People may not always live what they profess, but they will always live what they believe. If our behavior is off, we need to correct what we believe, because our misbehavior is the result of our disbelief.
2 Corinthians 5:1 - Far too many believers are feeling dirty, worthless and ashamed of themselves; shame is a silent, but deadly disease that pollutes the lifeblood of many believers ambassadorship. As a result, we feel unclean and therefore unworthy to approach God and have the living and intimate relationship that he wants to have with us.
Shame prevents us from intimacy with God, because it makes us feel unworthy and distant from him. God’s standard is nothing less than perfection and none of us measure up, if we did or we ever could measure up sufficiently righteous for heaven through our performance, we would not have needed a savior at all.
For it is God’s grace, not our striving, that makes us accepted and acceptable. It is God’s performance through Jesus Christ, not our trying hard to perform, that eradicates our shame. Some of us spend most of our life giving up. We are tired, burned out, disillusioned, depressed, addicted to something. People around us feel frustrated by the huge disparity between our capabilities and our performance.
They either pep talk us concerning our value, or shame us for not performing. No one can have a close relationship with us; we push people away physically and emotionally, and push God away. We are the ones in families, churches, and society that people take care of-for a while, until we are given up on because of our lack of response.
2 Corinthians 4:1 - The goal of most believer’s life has been to become disgusted enough with ourselves to try hard enough, so that we can finally win God’s approval. The truth Paul has proclaimed in all of his epistles is we could not get right with God in a million life times of trial and error. We could never make ourselves right with God; God had to do what we could not do for ourselves.
Yet many believers spend their entire existence unsuccessfully trying to be someone other than who they really are, paying lip service to the idea that we are accepted because of God’s grace, the struggle for acceptance on the basis of works is epidemic, but the greatest travesty of all, is the lack of understanding about our new identity in Christ.
It would be disastrous enough if the reason people did not understand who they are was simply for a lack of information, and the truth is that there is an absence of teaching concerning our new identity and what it means to be new creations in Christ. For all the performance-based people around us, we are simply bad for public relations.
2 Corinthians 5:18 - This ministry of reconciliation is not to the saved, we know we are reconciled, but now all have access to God, a change in status for the entire world. Does this mean the entire world is save? No. We have to have an individual change of status and that takes place when we accept what God’s son accomplished for us.
Paul wants us to agree with God, to reckon our identity with our flesh as dead and gone, but the sin nature has not died. Do we need to change our minds about the seriousness of sin and God’s answer to that serious dilemma we find ourselves in? Yes, we do. God has been long-suffering in holding back his wrath, because he hopes that we will consider his goodness through his son, his goodness on our behalf and flee to his grace.
God wants us to change our mind about who we are from fleshly perspective apart from Christ. God is not patiently waiting for us to change our mind about what we do; many have done that, thinking it gains salvation. We are justified through our sanctified position in Christ; we have a new identity.
It is impossible for a believer to lose his salvation, but a believer can die physically. If that believer decided every morning before eating cereal, that they are going to coat their cereal not with milk, but with a fifth of whiskey, what is the believer going to do to their body? A believer can die functionally in that they can serve no further useful purpose here on earth, no heavenly purpose on earth to those to whom they become an ambassador.
2 Corinthians 6:1 - The most dangerous and harmful detriments to our growth is passivity, putting our mind in neutral and coasting, sitting back and waiting for God to do everything is not God’s way to maturity. Our old pattern for thinking and responding to our sin-trained flesh must be transformed by the renewing of our mind, it is our responsibility to change our behavior by putting to death the deeds of the body.
If the enemy can deceive us into believing a lie, they can control our life in that area. We are saints whom God has declared righteous, believing the enemies lie will lock us into a defeated, fruitless life, but believing God’s truth about who we are will set us free.
It is imperative to our growth and maturity that we believe God’s truth about who we are. We must learn how to resolve previous conflicts or the emotional baggage will accumulate as we continue to withdraw from life, the past will control our life as our options for handling it continue to decrease.
Perceiving those events from the perspective of our new identity, which God sealed in Christ, is what starts the process of healing those damaged emotions, because we have the privilege of evaluating our past experience in the light of who we are now, as opposed to who we were then.
Ephesians 1:13-14 - The security all believers have in that the indwelling resurrection power of God guarantees that those who have believed Paul’s good news message can never be lost, they belong to God. The seal is the safeguarding device, the securing device, used to preserve the contents.
God’s energizing power from on high is the seal that God uses to secure all who believe in this dispensation of grace. Earnest means a pledge in the sense that an advance deposit has been made as the security guaranteeing the fulfillment of that which has been promised to those who have been sealed.
According to Paul, the indwelling of God’s energizing power from on high is both God’s seal and his deposited pledge that all believers are forever his and are destined to inherit eternal life. God’s energizing power from on high works in us, but only to the degree that we are willing to yield ourselves to God’s use in our ministry of reconciliation.
Paul doesn’t tell us that we are filled with God’s energizing power from on high, but instead, Paul is telling us that we should be filled with God’s energizing power from on high. In other words, we should allow God’s energizing power from on high to be in control of our lives. Of course, the degree to which we do that is up to us.
It was God’s plan before the creation of the world, that humankind’s fingerprints would not be found on humankind's salvation. Romans is designed to grow us up in faith doctrine. God has always used faith in every age, he has always used faith or what a person believes as the criteria necessary to effect salvation for humankind.
Romans 1:1 - Paul was not only first in line, when it came to dispensing the grace of God, Paul was also foremost in crime when it came to murdering the saints of Israel’s earthly kingdom program. If Paul was at Pentecost, would Paul himself, if he took part in stoning Stephen for believing the message given at Pentecost, would he have been a blasphemer at Pentecost? In Paul’s pre-grace zealousness, he would have been a foremost rejecter of any notion whatsoever that Jesus was Israel’s messiah or that Jesus had been risen from among the dead.
First in line, first in crime are apt descriptions for the Apostle of Grace. Paul was the chosen spokesman for God to relay the information for this entire dispensation of grace. God is not dealing with Israel nationally today, he is dealing with all alike in the Age of Grace. The apostle Paul dispensed a message that the 12 apostles had not dispensed, and that message was different, and that message was geared to the Gentiles.
Paul is the chief pattern of God’s grace to all, he is the foremost example. We need to understand that even though Paul was saved, Paul still considered himself to be a sinner. Paul understood the word: Sin. And Paul understood that word meant to come short of the righteousness belonging to God himself. Paul is the foremost example of the impossibility, the total impossibility of gaining righteousness before God through the performance of the flesh.
Paul could never preach and never preached the Gospel of the Kingdom, because the kingdom was no longer at hand. God cease dealing with “the outer man” in connection with God’s program with Israel and prophecy concerning their promised earthly kingdom, and then began dealing with “the inner man” in connection with his program concerning the saints of his heavenly calling.
Romans 1:2-3 - The Davidic covenant is an eternal and unconditional covenant between God and the House of David, or the dynasty of David. God says that David and his descendants may be punished for sin. They certainly will be punished for sin, but God will not take the kingdom away from them as he did from Saul.
God’s unconditional and eternal covenants with the patriarchs and with David do not prelude the possibility of punishment or chastisement for sin as specified in the conditional Mosaic covenant. The covenant with David, it’s a covenant of grant, it’s a grant of a reward for loyal service and deeds. God rewards David with the gift of an unending dynasty, in exchange for his loyalty.
God’s oath to preserve the Davidic dynasty, would lead eventually to a popular belief in the invincibility of the Holy City. The belief in Israel’s ultimate deliverance from enemies, became bound up with David and his dynasty. When the kingdom fell finally to the Babylonians, the promise to David’s House was believed to be eternal.
The community looked to the future for a restoration of the Davidic line or Davidic king or messiah. And in the exile, Israelites would pray for another messiah, meaning another king from the House of David appointed and anointed by Yahweh to rescue them from enemies, and reestablish them as a nation at peace in their land as David had done. The Israelites hope for a messiah; it involved the restoration of the nation in its land under a Davidic king.
Romans 1:4 - The Christian belief in the resurrection of the body did not arise from philosophical speculations or wishful thinking like the notion of the immortality of the soul. It arose from the conviction that such an event had actually already taken place with the resurrection of Jesus from among the dead. The resurrection is proof that Jesus is who he claimed to be, and that his sacrifice was pleasing to God.
As long as Jesus lay in the tomb, he was just another tragic religious figure who suffered a martyr’s death. In fact, Paul tells us that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest display of God’s power ever to be demonstrated, nor can it ever be surpassed. Our degree of judicial perfection in the eyes of God comes not through Jesus’ death for our sins, but through our identity with Jesus’ resurrection life.
Paul’s statement that Jesus’ resurrection was “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep,” the expression “first fruits” has little meaning for today’s urban dwellers. In Bible times, it had a rich meaning because it referred to the first produce of the harvest, which was offered in sacrifice to God to express gratitude for granting a new harvest. Thus, the first fruits, which were brought to the Temple, were seen not as mere hope of a new harvest, but as its actual beginning.
Jesus’ resurrection, then, is “the first fruits” in the sense that it has made the resurrection of believers not a mere possibility, but a certainty. Paul and the 12 apostles preached the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul preached what that meant to us Gentiles. The 12 apostles had preached the necessity of Christ being raised from among the dead, in order to sit on the throne of David in the promised kingdom.
Romans 1:5 - Grace within a dispensation was one thing, a dispensation characterized solely by grace is something else altogether. Grace is the foundation on which Paul’s entire ministry was built, and grace covers all the bases for the believer’s life. There is a glory that belongs to God’s grace, and it is to be praised on the bases on what God’s grace has accomplished.
Paul had been given special divine authority with the understanding that he is our apostle, and that authority carried with it the details of what God expects people to believe today, concerning the salvation Jesus Christ purchased for them with his sacrifice.
Therefore, God in his infinite wisdom devised a plan whereby he could take the very faith belonging to his son, along with its resultant faithfulness, and credit that faith and faithfulness to the account of those who believe. It is Christ’s faith that is freely credited to the account of the one who believes the good news message given to the apostle Paul to proclaim to us in this age of grace.
Paul wants us to know how a person is saved. He wants us to understand the basis by which God provides eternal security, not only has provided the gift of salvation; but provides eternal security to all those who place their faith in what the sacrifice of his son accomplished. It is our faith in the accomplishment of Jesus Christ’s faithful sacrifice that is the means whereby God acknowledges that we have accepted the gift his son purchased.
Romans 1:6 - When Paul refers to us as the called, he is referring not just to the fact that God is extending a call to us, an invitation or summons. Paul’s also referring to the fact that God’s calling us to participate in that to which we have been called, the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is an expression denoting the point when God began to judicially join believers to his son, the Body of Christ is not about program, but about judicial identity.
God forgave us, not because he had to, but because it was his desire too. God accomplished through Christ what we could never do on our own. God did not wait for us to do the first step. God had a choice, Jesus Christ had a choice, and they chose to do it. Christ believed that his sacrifice would settle the sin issue once and for all, and that God would raise him from among the dead.
What an ingenious salvation plan, to take someone else that is righteous and join us to that person. Sin causes a debt to God so large that it can never be paid by ourselves, but the person who knows what Jesus Christ really accomplished, exist in a completely new relationship with God. Justification is a legal act, wherein God deems the sinner righteous on the basis of Christ’s righteousness.
Justification is not a process, but is a one-time act, complete and definitive. God could only declare us to be right on the bases of who and what he is, not on the bases of who and what we would be apart from him. God had to devise a way to see us that way, and the way he devised to do that was by joining us to, hiding us in our perfectly righteous savior, thus freely crediting to our account Christ righteousness.
Romans 1:7 - The realization that God’s love accomplished some fantastic things on our behalf. God is anxiously awaiting his own inheritance, which happens to be us, God considers believers to be his own inheritance, he purchased us with the blood of his son, we are God’s valuable inheritance. We find the amazing and comforting truth that God’s love for those who are joined to his son, is the same unalterable and unending love God has for his son.
That is how closely connected we are to Christ, nothing will ever be able to diminish God’s loving attitude towards those who are joined to his son. We are called “saints” today, “set apart ones,” that is the word God uses for those who have placed their faith in the all-sufficiency of the sin-resolving sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ. We are the saints of a brand new program, to be identified in Christ makes a person a saint, because we have the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to our account.
Grace is that which God does for the human race through his son, which the human race can not earn, does not deserve and will never merit. Grace is God’s work for people, and encompasses everything we receive from God, he is free to do now for ungodly people who take him at his word. We must understand that God has predetermined to glorify us. In fact, he has predestined us to that glorification, we are objects of God’s purpose, because God had a purpose in mind where grace age believers are concerned, and he predetermined through his own decree that his purpose would stand, it will come to pass no matter what.
The inevitable result of God’s grace to the believer is true peace, because every believer is without blame before him in love. God sees us in Christ, and Christ was blameless. The only reason God could say through Paul, “Grace and Peace be unto you” is because God’s son fully paid the price. Justification by grace through faith, what a marvelous thing God has done, and who would have thought of a salvation in the sense that God’s plan would call for him to join a person to his son, therefore, what belongs to the son would now belong to believing people who have been joined to the son.
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teachmevp
I like to reason out of the word, the way and their chapter and verse attitude was a stubbling block for me, how does one chapter and verses a figure of speech. These posts are just thoughts.
Tzaia
Definitely an improvement over what it was. Thanks to Raf for the suggestion. Thanks to TeachmeVP for being nice enough to comply. The achingly hard to read part stems from the content, not the format
teachmevp
The only ones who can take up any piece of God’s armor, and the only ones who are involved in this struggle against Satan and his forces, are those who have been placed into Christ. The fact that the
teachmevp
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 - The first thing we need to know about the battle for our mind, is that the main targets which must be destroyed are the fortresses in our mind, or called strongholds. Strongholds are negative patters of thought which are burned into our minds, either through repetition over time or through one-time traumatic experiences. The worldly stimulation we were exposed to was both brief and prevailing.
We must capture the tempting thought in the first frame or it will probably capture us. Once our consideration of a temptation has triggered an emotional response, we will act upon that choice and own that behavior. We may resent our actions or claim that we are not responsible for what we do, but we are responsible for our actions at this stage, because we failed to take a tempting thought captive when it first appeared at the threshold of our mind.
If we continue to repeat an act for more than six weeks, we will form a habit, and if we exercise that habit long enough, a stronghold will be established. Once a stronghold of thought and response is entrenched in our mind, our ability to choose and to act contrary to that pattern is virtually nonexistent, and negative thoughts and actions we cannot control, spring from a stronghold. Simply putting on the armor of God at this stage will not solve our dilemma, these strongholds are already entrenched and fortified.
If the strongholds in our mind are the result of conditioning, then we can be reconditioned by the renewing of our mind. Anything that has been learned, can be unlearned, but we are also up against Satan and his devil spirits who are scheming to fill our mind with thoughts which are opposed to our ambassadorship.
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Colossians 3:2 - The natural tendency of the flesh is to set our affection on the things of the earth and the things of the flesh and allow those things to rule our mind. We are not to hold the things on the earth so near and dear so as to rule our minds. Paul’s desire is that we refocus our minds, renewing of our minds day by day.
Paul would not have us be defeated believers, depression is Satan’s weapon to defeat us. Depression is a rush of negative attitude that results from a vacuum of joy. Joy is the opposite of negative attitude. Depression is negative attitude based on fleshly happenstance in the absence of hope. Is the primary focus of your mind on the circumstances at hand in your life?
When it comes to a mind set of joy, Paul takes us to a re-direction of thought and its up to each of us individually. It is our responsibility to focus our own minds appropriately and according to Paul its a redirection of thought based upon the accomplishments of Christ. The cause of depression is almost always related to fleshly circumstance, people, things and worry over those three.
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Galatians 4:21 - Can a person’s righteous works be added to the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ himself, in order to arrive at a greater degree of righteousness than the righteousness already belonging to our Savior? Would more righteousness be needed than the Savior’s righteousness, when it comes to the human race? Is God requiring that we add our righteous works to Christ’s righteousness that we might become righteous indeed, or is Christ’s righteousness the only righteousness from God’s perspective his saints will ever need?
The lunacy of desiring to be under the law was in the fact that the Galatians actually thought they could perform the law in a manner that would make them more righteous before God. They were trying to perfect their righteousness, to cap off the righteousness they have in God’s sight. They thought they could enhance their righteousness through their performance, through their rule-keeping, and they were using the law.
God used the faithfulness OF his son and the faith of the Galatians in his son’s faithfulness to have resolved God’s justice for their sins as the criterion. If our only righteousness in the sight of God comes through our union with his perfectly righteous son, is it not idiotic thinking to suppose that our righteous works can ENHANCE the righteousness that belongs to Christ, to whom we have been joined? The Galatians were not falling back into sinful practice, they were falling back into law practice. They were falling back into the mindset that their righteousness before God was tied to their performance.
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Philippians 3:2-3 - Paul warned to guard against those who would promote a righteousness through performance idea. Is it not interesting that the Gentiles had been considered dogs? Now you come to Paul speaking to the saints in Philippi, and it is the unbelieving Israelites who are considered dogs. Beware of Dogs; Beware of Evil Workers; Beware of the Concision.
Just the fact that they were of the physical linage of Abraham did not cut the mustard as far as their righteous standing with God was concerned. Paul is simply drawing a contrast between those who were relying upon ritual for righteousness and those who place no confidence whatsoever in their flesh for a right standing before God.
Paul’s point here is circumcision apart from faith is nothing more than concision. It is nothing more than mutilation. You see, the concision, although it sounds like the word circumcision, the concision is a reference to those false teachers who thought that ritual, who thought they could do something, perform something and the ritual here was circumcision.
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2 Corinthians 10:4-5 - The first thing we need to know about the battle for our mind, is that the main targets which must be destroyed are the fortresses in our mind, or called strongholds. Strongholds are negative patters of thought which are burned into our minds, either through repetition over time or through one-time traumatic experiences. The worldly stimulation we were exposed to was both brief and prevailing.
We must capture the tempting thought in the first frame or it will probably capture us. Once our consideration of a temptation has triggered an emotional response, we will act upon that choice and own that behavior. We may resent our actions or claim that we are not responsible for what we do, but we are responsible for our actions at this stage, because we failed to take a tempting thought captive when it first appeared at the threshold of our mind.
If we continue to repeat an act for more than six weeks, we will form a habit, and if we exercise that habit long enough, a stronghold will be established. Once a stronghold of thought and response is entrenched in our mind, our ability to choose and to act contrary to that pattern is virtually nonexistent, and negative thoughts and actions we cannot control, spring from a stronghold. Simply putting on the armor of God at this stage will not solve our dilemma, these strongholds are already entrenched and fortified.
If the strongholds in our mind are the result of conditioning, then we can be reconditioned by the renewing of our mind. Anything that has been learned, can be unlearned, but we are also up against Satan and his devil spirits who are scheming to fill our mind with thoughts which are opposed to our ambassadorship.
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2 Corinthians 5:18-19 - People continue to operate today in their thinking, nothings really changed, under the assumption that their sin is separating them from God. Many believe that they have to commit to abstain or commit to perform in order to be acceptable to God. If they sin in their thinking, they think God’s not going to accept them, that is how they reason it.
Many think they have sinned too many times to be acceptable to God. Or still others who may have made that “I will not sin” commitment over and over again and then broken those commitments, suppose it is to late for them anyway. Then you have the religious crowd who think their religious practices keep them in God’s favor. There are those who suppose church attendance merit’s some degree of favor with God. Others have I am doing the very best I can. So God will surely take note of my heart.
If an ounce of new reconciliation in this Age of Grace could be restored for anyone when it comes to the issue of their sins, then the degree of forgiveness that must be obtained in order to restore the reconciliation, is the very degree to which that individual refuses to believe that Christ accomplished it all. Paul’s good news message is hid from those people. They do not understand what reconciliation is all about.
They think that new sin needs a new measure of reconciliation, so they seek forgiveness on the installment plan. Is that not the golden thread woven through every denomination out there? The truth is, you could not obtain an ounce of forgiveness if you tried, because God has already forgiven you all. That is why Christ’s ambassadors have the responsibility and privilege of making the reality of the reconciliation Christ has already accomplished known to those who know nothing of it.
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1 Corinthians 3:14-15 - Dying to self, is never portrayed as something optional, it is the reality of being born anew; unless we are willing to see our old lives crucified with Christ and begin to live anew in obedience to him. Dying to self is something you can take very literal; you will die in every way possible in order to be someone you are not.
The entire concept seems a bit strange to our natural eyes. Rather, dying to self means that the things of the old life are put to death, most especially the sinful ways and lifestyles we once engaged in. We see that we need to die to self, although our salvation is not dependent upon how well we accomplish this.
Yet, as ambassadors of the ministry of reconciliation, our witness is dependent upon how well we accomplish this. Dying to self is never portrayed as something optional, it is the reality of being born anew. Dying to self is something you can take very literal, you will die in every way possible in order to be someone you are not. Dying to self is a change in our principle action from what is by nature the exact opposite.
Dying to self is not fun or easy, but what is particularly difficult about fighting this tendency is that it is not exactly a behavior or action. It can certainly manifest itself in those forms, but underneath them is an attitude. Dying to self is a real change of mind and attitude towards sin itself and the cause of it.
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1 Thessalonians 4:14 - Paul did not think the question of the status of the person between death and resurrection was a question that needed to be considered. The reason is that for Paul, those who die in Christ, their relationship with Christ is one of immediacy, because they have no awareness of the passing of time between their death and resurrection.
Death as we know it, would indeed be the end of our existence were it not for the fact of the resurrection. The second death differs from the first death, not in nature, but in results. The second death is permeant and irreversible extinction, because there is no awakening.
The second death is the death resulting from the final judgment which prevents evildoers from living in the new earth to come, a punishment that ultimately results in eternal, irreversible death. The stern punishment awaiting the enemies of righteousness, whose temporary resurrection results only in a return to death and its punishment, their full and final defeat. The wicked will be resurrected mortal in order to receive their punishment which will result in their ultimate annihilation.
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Philippians 3:20 - Satan and his forces are playing a cover up game with Paul’s good news message, because they have a desire to keep people lost. For example, Satan and his forces have deceived a great many people into believing a negative view of the body in contrast to the soul, and a concept of salvation as interior experience rather than total transformation.
A great many people have been deceived into believing that their nature is dualistic, that is, consisting of a material, mortal body and a spiritual, immortal soul. Dualism has done such a serious harm in weakening our blessed hope of Christ ‘s appearing and in distorting our understanding of our citizenship in heaven.
The Bible never sees the flesh and the soul as two different forms of existence. Rather, they are manifestations of the same person, the ancient Hebrews could not conceive of one without the other. The two are indissolubly connected because the body is the outward form of the soul and the soul the inward life of the body. The body and soul are an indivisible unity; people are seen from two different perspectives.
The body is the physical reality of human existence; the soul is the vitality and personality of human existence. The fact that a person consists of various parts which are integrated, interrelated and functionally united, leaves no room for the notion of the soul being distinct from the body and thus removing the basis for the belief in the survival of the soul at the death of the body.
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2 Corinthians 9:8 - Achieving God’s goals for our ambassadorship is learning to distinguish his goal, from his desire. It is a critical distinction, because it can spell the difference between success and failure. His goal is any specific result reflecting his purposes for our ambassadorship, that does not depend on people or circumstances beyond our ability.
The only person who can block his goal or render it uncertain or impossible is us, and if we adopt the attitude of cooperation with his goals, his goal can be reached. His desire is any specific result that depends on the cooperation of other people or the success of events or favorable circumstances we cannot control.
We cannot base our self-worth or our personal success on our desires, no matter how godly they may be, because we cannot control their fulfillment. When a desire is wrongly elevated to a goal, and that goal is frustrated, we must deal with all the anger, anxiety, and depression which may accompany that failure.
Dealing with the disappointments of unmet desires is a lot easier then dealing with the anger, anxiety, and depression of goals, we would do well to distinguish goals from desires. When we begin to align our goals with God’s goals for our ambassadorship, and our desires with his desires, we will rid our life of a lot of anger, anxiety, and depression.
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Philippians 4:6-7 - We can know on a moment-by-moment basis if our ambassadorship is properly aligned with his truth. God has established a feedback system which is designed to grab our attention, so we can examine the validity of our goal.
That system is our emotions. When an experience leaves us feeling angry, anxious, or depressed, those emotional signposts are there to alert us that we may be cherishing a faulty goal. When our activity results in feelings of anger, it is usually because someone or something has blocked our goal.
Any goal which can be blocked by forces we cannot control (other then God’s goal) is not a healthy goal, because our success in that arena is out of our hands. Feelings of anger should prompt us to reexamine our ambassadorship, and the mental goals we have formulated to accomplish God’s message of reconciliation.
When we feel anxious in a task, our anxiety may be signaling the uncertainty of a goal we have chosen. We are wishing something will happen, but we have no guarantee that it will. We can control some of the factors, but not all of them.
When we base our future success on something that can never happen, we have an impossible goal. Our depression is a signal that our goal, no matter how noble, may never be reached. Depression often signals that we are desperately clinging to a goal we have little or no chance of achieving, and that is not a healthy goal.
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2 Corinthians 10:3 - When we choose to walk according to the old identity, in which we were trained before becoming born anew, such behavior violates our ambassadorship. When this happens, we feel convicted because our behavior is not in keeping with who we really are. We commit sin when we willfully allow ourselves to act independent of our ambassadorship, as our old identity did as a matter of course.
So why do we still react as if our old identity is still in control of our behavior? Because, while we served under it, our old identity trained and conditioned our actions, reactions, emotional responses, thought patterns, memories and habits in our brain. Our worldly experiences thoroughly programmed our brain with thought patterns, memory traces, responses and habits.
Our brain still generates humanistic thoughts and ideas, and our old identity is that part of us which was trained and determined to succeed and survive by our own abilities. When we became born anew, God did not press the clear button in our brain, our old identity persists in suggesting ways to live independent of our ambassadorship of God’s reconciliation.
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2 Corinthians 6:4 - God’s basic goal for our life, is character development. The tribulations we face are actually a means of achieving our supreme goal of maturity, because persevering tribulations is the doorway to proven character, which is his goal for us. Perhaps the greatest service performed by trails and tribulations in our lives is to reveal wrong goals.
It is during these times of pressure that our emotions raise their warning flags signaling blocked goals, uncertain goals and impossible goals which are based on our desires, instead of God’s goal for our ambassadorship. His plan is for us to hang in there and grow up, and tribulation just happens to be one of the primary stepping stones on the pathway.
By preparing our minds for action, we must be transformed by the renewing of our mind, by filling it with God’s truth. We need to practice threshold, first-frame thinking, evaluate every thought by the truth. People may not always live what they profess, but they will always live what they believe. If our behavior is off, we need to correct what we believe, because our misbehavior is the result of our disbelief.
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2 Corinthians 5:1 - Far too many believers are feeling dirty, worthless and ashamed of themselves; shame is a silent, but deadly disease that pollutes the lifeblood of many believers ambassadorship. As a result, we feel unclean and therefore unworthy to approach God and have the living and intimate relationship that he wants to have with us.
Shame prevents us from intimacy with God, because it makes us feel unworthy and distant from him. God’s standard is nothing less than perfection and none of us measure up, if we did or we ever could measure up sufficiently righteous for heaven through our performance, we would not have needed a savior at all.
For it is God’s grace, not our striving, that makes us accepted and acceptable. It is God’s performance through Jesus Christ, not our trying hard to perform, that eradicates our shame. Some of us spend most of our life giving up. We are tired, burned out, disillusioned, depressed, addicted to something. People around us feel frustrated by the huge disparity between our capabilities and our performance.
They either pep talk us concerning our value, or shame us for not performing. No one can have a close relationship with us; we push people away physically and emotionally, and push God away. We are the ones in families, churches, and society that people take care of-for a while, until we are given up on because of our lack of response.
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2 Corinthians 4:1 - The goal of most believer’s life has been to become disgusted enough with ourselves to try hard enough, so that we can finally win God’s approval. The truth Paul has proclaimed in all of his epistles is we could not get right with God in a million life times of trial and error. We could never make ourselves right with God; God had to do what we could not do for ourselves.
Yet many believers spend their entire existence unsuccessfully trying to be someone other than who they really are, paying lip service to the idea that we are accepted because of God’s grace, the struggle for acceptance on the basis of works is epidemic, but the greatest travesty of all, is the lack of understanding about our new identity in Christ.
It would be disastrous enough if the reason people did not understand who they are was simply for a lack of information, and the truth is that there is an absence of teaching concerning our new identity and what it means to be new creations in Christ. For all the performance-based people around us, we are simply bad for public relations.
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2 Corinthians 5:18 - This ministry of reconciliation is not to the saved, we know we are reconciled, but now all have access to God, a change in status for the entire world. Does this mean the entire world is save? No. We have to have an individual change of status and that takes place when we accept what God’s son accomplished for us.
Paul wants us to agree with God, to reckon our identity with our flesh as dead and gone, but the sin nature has not died. Do we need to change our minds about the seriousness of sin and God’s answer to that serious dilemma we find ourselves in? Yes, we do. God has been long-suffering in holding back his wrath, because he hopes that we will consider his goodness through his son, his goodness on our behalf and flee to his grace.
God wants us to change our mind about who we are from fleshly perspective apart from Christ. God is not patiently waiting for us to change our mind about what we do; many have done that, thinking it gains salvation. We are justified through our sanctified position in Christ; we have a new identity.
It is impossible for a believer to lose his salvation, but a believer can die physically. If that believer decided every morning before eating cereal, that they are going to coat their cereal not with milk, but with a fifth of whiskey, what is the believer going to do to their body? A believer can die functionally in that they can serve no further useful purpose here on earth, no heavenly purpose on earth to those to whom they become an ambassador.
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2 Corinthians 6:1 - The most dangerous and harmful detriments to our growth is passivity, putting our mind in neutral and coasting, sitting back and waiting for God to do everything is not God’s way to maturity. Our old pattern for thinking and responding to our sin-trained flesh must be transformed by the renewing of our mind, it is our responsibility to change our behavior by putting to death the deeds of the body.
If the enemy can deceive us into believing a lie, they can control our life in that area. We are saints whom God has declared righteous, believing the enemies lie will lock us into a defeated, fruitless life, but believing God’s truth about who we are will set us free.
It is imperative to our growth and maturity that we believe God’s truth about who we are. We must learn how to resolve previous conflicts or the emotional baggage will accumulate as we continue to withdraw from life, the past will control our life as our options for handling it continue to decrease.
Perceiving those events from the perspective of our new identity, which God sealed in Christ, is what starts the process of healing those damaged emotions, because we have the privilege of evaluating our past experience in the light of who we are now, as opposed to who we were then.
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Ephesians 1:13-14 - The security all believers have in that the indwelling resurrection power of God guarantees that those who have believed Paul’s good news message can never be lost, they belong to God. The seal is the safeguarding device, the securing device, used to preserve the contents.
God’s energizing power from on high is the seal that God uses to secure all who believe in this dispensation of grace. Earnest means a pledge in the sense that an advance deposit has been made as the security guaranteeing the fulfillment of that which has been promised to those who have been sealed.
According to Paul, the indwelling of God’s energizing power from on high is both God’s seal and his deposited pledge that all believers are forever his and are destined to inherit eternal life. God’s energizing power from on high works in us, but only to the degree that we are willing to yield ourselves to God’s use in our ministry of reconciliation.
Paul doesn’t tell us that we are filled with God’s energizing power from on high, but instead, Paul is telling us that we should be filled with God’s energizing power from on high. In other words, we should allow God’s energizing power from on high to be in control of our lives. Of course, the degree to which we do that is up to us.
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It was God’s plan before the creation of the world, that humankind’s fingerprints would not be found on humankind's salvation. Romans is designed to grow us up in faith doctrine. God has always used faith in every age, he has always used faith or what a person believes as the criteria necessary to effect salvation for humankind.
Romans 1:1 - Paul was not only first in line, when it came to dispensing the grace of God, Paul was also foremost in crime when it came to murdering the saints of Israel’s earthly kingdom program. If Paul was at Pentecost, would Paul himself, if he took part in stoning Stephen for believing the message given at Pentecost, would he have been a blasphemer at Pentecost? In Paul’s pre-grace zealousness, he would have been a foremost rejecter of any notion whatsoever that Jesus was Israel’s messiah or that Jesus had been risen from among the dead.
First in line, first in crime are apt descriptions for the Apostle of Grace. Paul was the chosen spokesman for God to relay the information for this entire dispensation of grace. God is not dealing with Israel nationally today, he is dealing with all alike in the Age of Grace. The apostle Paul dispensed a message that the 12 apostles had not dispensed, and that message was different, and that message was geared to the Gentiles.
Paul is the chief pattern of God’s grace to all, he is the foremost example. We need to understand that even though Paul was saved, Paul still considered himself to be a sinner. Paul understood the word: Sin. And Paul understood that word meant to come short of the righteousness belonging to God himself. Paul is the foremost example of the impossibility, the total impossibility of gaining righteousness before God through the performance of the flesh.
Paul could never preach and never preached the Gospel of the Kingdom, because the kingdom was no longer at hand. God cease dealing with “the outer man” in connection with God’s program with Israel and prophecy concerning their promised earthly kingdom, and then began dealing with “the inner man” in connection with his program concerning the saints of his heavenly calling.
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Romans 1:2-3 - The Davidic covenant is an eternal and unconditional covenant between God and the House of David, or the dynasty of David. God says that David and his descendants may be punished for sin. They certainly will be punished for sin, but God will not take the kingdom away from them as he did from Saul.
God’s unconditional and eternal covenants with the patriarchs and with David do not prelude the possibility of punishment or chastisement for sin as specified in the conditional Mosaic covenant. The covenant with David, it’s a covenant of grant, it’s a grant of a reward for loyal service and deeds. God rewards David with the gift of an unending dynasty, in exchange for his loyalty.
God’s oath to preserve the Davidic dynasty, would lead eventually to a popular belief in the invincibility of the Holy City. The belief in Israel’s ultimate deliverance from enemies, became bound up with David and his dynasty. When the kingdom fell finally to the Babylonians, the promise to David’s House was believed to be eternal.
The community looked to the future for a restoration of the Davidic line or Davidic king or messiah. And in the exile, Israelites would pray for another messiah, meaning another king from the House of David appointed and anointed by Yahweh to rescue them from enemies, and reestablish them as a nation at peace in their land as David had done. The Israelites hope for a messiah; it involved the restoration of the nation in its land under a Davidic king.
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Romans 1:4 - The Christian belief in the resurrection of the body did not arise from philosophical speculations or wishful thinking like the notion of the immortality of the soul. It arose from the conviction that such an event had actually already taken place with the resurrection of Jesus from among the dead. The resurrection is proof that Jesus is who he claimed to be, and that his sacrifice was pleasing to God.
As long as Jesus lay in the tomb, he was just another tragic religious figure who suffered a martyr’s death. In fact, Paul tells us that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest display of God’s power ever to be demonstrated, nor can it ever be surpassed. Our degree of judicial perfection in the eyes of God comes not through Jesus’ death for our sins, but through our identity with Jesus’ resurrection life.
Paul’s statement that Jesus’ resurrection was “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep,” the expression “first fruits” has little meaning for today’s urban dwellers. In Bible times, it had a rich meaning because it referred to the first produce of the harvest, which was offered in sacrifice to God to express gratitude for granting a new harvest. Thus, the first fruits, which were brought to the Temple, were seen not as mere hope of a new harvest, but as its actual beginning.
Jesus’ resurrection, then, is “the first fruits” in the sense that it has made the resurrection of believers not a mere possibility, but a certainty. Paul and the 12 apostles preached the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul preached what that meant to us Gentiles. The 12 apostles had preached the necessity of Christ being raised from among the dead, in order to sit on the throne of David in the promised kingdom.
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Romans 1:5 - Grace within a dispensation was one thing, a dispensation characterized solely by grace is something else altogether. Grace is the foundation on which Paul’s entire ministry was built, and grace covers all the bases for the believer’s life. There is a glory that belongs to God’s grace, and it is to be praised on the bases on what God’s grace has accomplished.
Paul had been given special divine authority with the understanding that he is our apostle, and that authority carried with it the details of what God expects people to believe today, concerning the salvation Jesus Christ purchased for them with his sacrifice.
Therefore, God in his infinite wisdom devised a plan whereby he could take the very faith belonging to his son, along with its resultant faithfulness, and credit that faith and faithfulness to the account of those who believe. It is Christ’s faith that is freely credited to the account of the one who believes the good news message given to the apostle Paul to proclaim to us in this age of grace.
Paul wants us to know how a person is saved. He wants us to understand the basis by which God provides eternal security, not only has provided the gift of salvation; but provides eternal security to all those who place their faith in what the sacrifice of his son accomplished. It is our faith in the accomplishment of Jesus Christ’s faithful sacrifice that is the means whereby God acknowledges that we have accepted the gift his son purchased.
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Romans 1:6 - When Paul refers to us as the called, he is referring not just to the fact that God is extending a call to us, an invitation or summons. Paul’s also referring to the fact that God’s calling us to participate in that to which we have been called, the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is an expression denoting the point when God began to judicially join believers to his son, the Body of Christ is not about program, but about judicial identity.
God forgave us, not because he had to, but because it was his desire too. God accomplished through Christ what we could never do on our own. God did not wait for us to do the first step. God had a choice, Jesus Christ had a choice, and they chose to do it. Christ believed that his sacrifice would settle the sin issue once and for all, and that God would raise him from among the dead.
What an ingenious salvation plan, to take someone else that is righteous and join us to that person. Sin causes a debt to God so large that it can never be paid by ourselves, but the person who knows what Jesus Christ really accomplished, exist in a completely new relationship with God. Justification is a legal act, wherein God deems the sinner righteous on the basis of Christ’s righteousness.
Justification is not a process, but is a one-time act, complete and definitive. God could only declare us to be right on the bases of who and what he is, not on the bases of who and what we would be apart from him. God had to devise a way to see us that way, and the way he devised to do that was by joining us to, hiding us in our perfectly righteous savior, thus freely crediting to our account Christ righteousness.
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Romans 1:7 - The realization that God’s love accomplished some fantastic things on our behalf. God is anxiously awaiting his own inheritance, which happens to be us, God considers believers to be his own inheritance, he purchased us with the blood of his son, we are God’s valuable inheritance. We find the amazing and comforting truth that God’s love for those who are joined to his son, is the same unalterable and unending love God has for his son.
That is how closely connected we are to Christ, nothing will ever be able to diminish God’s loving attitude towards those who are joined to his son. We are called “saints” today, “set apart ones,” that is the word God uses for those who have placed their faith in the all-sufficiency of the sin-resolving sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ. We are the saints of a brand new program, to be identified in Christ makes a person a saint, because we have the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to our account.
Grace is that which God does for the human race through his son, which the human race can not earn, does not deserve and will never merit. Grace is God’s work for people, and encompasses everything we receive from God, he is free to do now for ungodly people who take him at his word. We must understand that God has predetermined to glorify us. In fact, he has predestined us to that glorification, we are objects of God’s purpose, because God had a purpose in mind where grace age believers are concerned, and he predetermined through his own decree that his purpose would stand, it will come to pass no matter what.
The inevitable result of God’s grace to the believer is true peace, because every believer is without blame before him in love. God sees us in Christ, and Christ was blameless. The only reason God could say through Paul, “Grace and Peace be unto you” is because God’s son fully paid the price. Justification by grace through faith, what a marvelous thing God has done, and who would have thought of a salvation in the sense that God’s plan would call for him to join a person to his son, therefore, what belongs to the son would now belong to believing people who have been joined to the son.
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