A Call to Godly Perspective

2 Corinthians 5:16-21
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

A Call to Godly Perspective

We are naturally inclined to see, hear, smell, feel and taste. We tend to analyze and evaluate our world from a natural perspective. God has brought us into a spiritual sense. The Apostle Paul is talking here about no longer evaluating and seeing your world from a natural, self-centered perspective, but from God’s perspective. Paul is saying here that even Jesus, the Christ, whom you knew after the flesh, it is not His flesh that we relate with now, it is the Spirit.
What is the spiritual perspective of God? It is that He was in Christ reconciling sinful man back to Himself. The Lord Jesus fulfilled the act needed for man to be reconciled and now we are His ambassadors, His expression of love and truth to express the intent of God to man, as He has expressed it and made it real to us. We who have experienced Christ and His love and salvation working in our lives are now God’s voice to the world around us saying” Come and be reconciled to your God. Come to know Him through the shed blood of Christ that has made attonement for your sin so that they will not be counted against you.” We must see men, no longer after the flesh, but as spiritual beings in need of the message of reconciliation. The mission statement of the God is summed up in verse 21, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” God is imploring us and He is imploring others through us, “Be reconciled to God!” We should carry this message of reconciliation to the world around us, if we do nothing else. Regard those around you as spiritual beings, lost and searching for the answer as to their existence and purpose. We find it when we are reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. God in Christ is making this appeal through us. Let us be faithful to live out of this godly point of view.

Blessings,
#kent

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Who is Keeping You from Obeying the Truth?

Galatians 5:7-9 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? 8That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9″A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.”

Who is Keeping You from Obeying the Truth?

Organized religion and legalism has hindered many in Christian faith from obeying the truth. With legalism people can control you, condemn you or make you believe that you must measure up to their standards. They put you again into bondage to try to win or earn God’s favor. The simplicity of the law of the gospel is simply to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul and with all of your mind and then to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said on these two commandments, all of the law and the prophets hang. If you are still struggling with trying to be good enough for God and earn your way into heaven, you are missing it. Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves, through the cross He justified us as if we had never sinned, redeemed us, forgave us and washed us clean in His own blood. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For he hath made him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Our only worthiness and acceptance before God is found in Christ. Nothing that we could do to be good enough or works we could do to earn His favor could replace or add to what God has already done for us in Christ. Our religion is to accept the finished work of Jesus that He accomplished on that cross. When we accept Christ we enter into an exchange, my old sinful life for His righteous spiritual life. We die to what we were so that we might live into what He is. That living is a walk of faith and obedience to His Word and the Holy Spirit that now resides within us. Christ didn’t die for us to be put again under bondage; He died that He might impart unto us freedom. Galatians 5:13-18 goes on to say, “13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature rather, serve one another in love. 14The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. 16So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.” The religion of man and legalism only brings us again under condemnation. Roman 8:1-4 says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” If there are those that are putting laws, ordinances and requirements upon you in order for you to be saved or accepted by God other than what the Word itself requires, they are keeping you from obeying the truth. They are robbing your freedom to put you again under bondage and the will of man. Know the truth of God and allow that truth to set you free. Galatians 2:21 says, “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness [come] by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” Do not allow yourself to be put under bondage, but come out into the wonderful liberty of the Spirit that is in Christ Jesus.

Blessings,

#kent

Christ in You

Colossians 1:25-27
I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— 26the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 27To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Christ in You

There are many powerful truths that are imparted to us through the Word of God. Perhaps the greatest truth aside from knowing Christ as my personal Savior and being filled with the Holy Spirit is the truth that I am sharing with you today. When we get a revelation of what Paul calls the glorious riches of a hidden mystery then we are empowered, because now we are no longer orphans. We know who our true Daddy is and we now know our true identity. That identity is no longer associated with the weak man of the flesh that I was born of in the natural. It is identified in knowing that I am a son of God. Papa’s DNA is now in me, because Christ is in me. When I really lay hold of that and begin to live my life in the light of that truth I realize I am not my own, I am His. It is as Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” That former me died back when I ask Christ into my heart and Christ entered into me to give me my new identity in Him.
Oh, how the enemy wants to rob that truth and revelation from us. If he can confuse or hide from you who you really are then he can perpetrate his lies into you about who you really aren’t. If you don’t know your identity he is more than happy to give you his. That is why so many of us live defeated, discouraged, condemned and robbed of our joy, strength and power.
Does anyone reading this ever feel so unworthy, like a failure and separated in their relationship with God. It is because you are allowing your identity to be taken from you. Your identity is not in your feelings and it is not even in your own righteousness, it is in the Righteous One who died for you. He took our sins and imparted into us His righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Romans 3:21-24 speaks to this, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” We have such a hard time releasing our old identity because that is exactly where the enemy wants to keep us living. In that old identity he can put us again under the law of sin and death, instead of the liberty we can find in the law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus.
Jesus speak to it this way when He is praying to the Father in John 17:20-23, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Jesus places us in the same context of relationship with Him as He is in with the Father. That is a powerful insight into how He now sees you and receives you. You are no longer a foreigner, an outsider, but an heir and joint- heir with Him. We are family! Your family doesn’t love you because you’re perfect they love you because you are a part of them. When we realize that we are family, that we are flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, then we can get a real revelation of the calling that is upon our lives because of who we truly are. Life is no longer about pleasing me, it is about pleasing my father because I have that Christ nature in me.
What did Jesus come to do?
John 14:31 says, “but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” That is the mandate of a son; to do the will of the Father. We know that we don’t have that within our former self, but we do have it because of who we now are in Christ and because the nature of Christ is being formed in us.
1 John 3:1-3 affirms that identity, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” 1 John 2:3-6 exhorts us with this, “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” Because you have born again in His nature you will live in His truth. If you are struggling with this then look at where you identity is at and get it in alignment with who God says you are and what He has called you to be.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory!”

Blessings,
kent

Coming Out of Guilt and Shame

2 Corinthians 5:21
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Coming Out of Guilt and Shame

You know, a lot of us as believers get pretty beat up sometimes by the thoughts of the enemy and the thoughts that we embrace and receive about ourselves.  We make the mistake of still trying to see our righteousness through the filter of our own efforts and abilities.  When we fall short, it seems the enemy is always right there to tell us what a failure and a mess we are.  What is even worse is when we join that pity party we are having with ourselves and those thoughts.  When we do that we separate ourselves from the identity of who we are in Christ.  Our righteousness is not in us, it never will be; it is in Him, and the righteousness of Him in us.
Righteousness, is right standing with God.  Who is the only one who can give us right standing with God?  We know it is only Christ.  It is certainly not our goodness or even best efforts.  Sin that has overshadowed us, clouded our vision and condemned us has no more dominion over us.  We are no longer the slaves of sin, we are the instruments of God’s righteousness.  We have no more obligation to the sinful man, because we reckon him dead in Christ.  As we live in Christ we displace the former man with the likeness, character and nature of our new man in Christ.
Do we struggle in areas of our life with sin?  Sure we do, but it doesn’t negate who we are in Christ.  It doesn’t diminish His love or acceptance of us in any way.  While we don’t condone or become acceptant of sin,  we don’t allow it to condemn us and rob us of what Christ freely gave us, not by what we earned by our goodness.
Why do have these areas of weakness wherein we all struggle with our issues?  For us to be overcomers there has to be those things that must be overcome.  Our faith and perseverance is tested and tried by the obstacles we face without and within.  Christ is not as concerned about your failure in areas as He is in you seeing and meeting your difficult areas identified and clothed with Him.  Our temptation is to fragment our identity into  “Christ in us” and then “us, as our old self”.  It is kind of like serving God and mammon.  You can’t have two masters.  If we are going to face our sin and our areas of weakness we have to do so as  “in Christ”, because only in that identity can we find our victory and overcoming.  The more we are filled with Him, by soaking and abiding in His presence and in His Word the more powerfully His life rises up in us to meet the challenges before us.
If we fail, does Jesus reject us?  No, we get back up, get our identity back in place and press into Him.  Remember  1 John 1: 7-10, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”
Oh, we’ll keep getting tested, but one day, as our hearts continually turn back to Him, we will find the Christ is in us waxing stronger and those areas of temptation and failure growing weaker.  We never want to make the mistake of again identifying our success in us, because all that we are  in success and in failure is “in Him”.  Just as an infant growing to child, child to adolescence and adolescence growing to adulthood, so Christ is growing up in us as we feed and nurture that life within us.  Our affections for the former things begins to pass away, because we are growing into something so much better and more fulfilling than the flesh could ever offer.
God loves us right where we at, but he loves too much to leave us there.  Don’t come into agreement with the enemy over your faults and failures.  Come into agreement with the Word of God that, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  Holy Spirit is transforming our lives into His righteousness as we offer ourselves as living sacrifices, refusing to be conformed to the world, but being transformed through the renewing of our minds in Christ Jesus.  Identify no longer with sin, but with the righteousness of Christ you are becoming.
” Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)

Blessings,
kent

Whose Image are You Identified With

2 Corinthians 5:21
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Whose Image are You Identified With

When we see ourselves and others through the natural eyes of our understanding often all we see is cracked pots and broken vessels.  We see the flaws, the shortcomings and all the reasons why God shouldn’t or wouldn’t accept us.  As a result we make judgements upon ourselves and others that are not after God’s heart, but our own.
The enemy capitalizes upon the weaknesses, frailties and failures of men to bring further feelings of condemnation and unworthiness to us.  Through that image satan brings us to place where all we may see is our separation and unworthiness from the Father.  So often we allow this orphan spirit to become our identity and we begin to embrace his lie that robs us of our hope of restoration and relationship with our Creator.
Is that really truth?  Is that the reality God wants us to live in?
If it were, would Jesus have needed to sacrifice His holy life for us.  He took our sin upon Himself and became that sin for us, suffering the cross which was God’s holy judgement upon our sin, failure and shortcomings.  Even though many of us as believers acknowledge and receive that message, we still allow the law of sin and death to bring its condemnation in upon us and we still see ourselves after the natural man, embracing condemnation and defeat.
God wants to give us the eyes of the Spirit to see ourselves through His Truth and through His Word.  Jesus died to bring us into freedom and victory and into the identity of the way He has made for us to be sons and daughters of our Father God.  Jesus came to give back to us that godly identity and sonship that was robbed from in the garden through the first Adam.  It is only as we are willing to look in the mirror of God’s Word that we can begin to see the image of Him who formed us in His likeness.  There His Word declares the riches of who we are in Christ.  What we see is what we once were is dead.  We identified it with Christ upon the cross.  It has been crucified therefore it no longer lives.  Yet we so often lose sight of that as believers and we become the walking dead, resurrecting an old man that we crucified.  That is an unholy thing and an affront to Him who gave His life for us.  He raised us up a new creation to walk in the newness of His life, not our old one.  He didn’t  just accomplish this for us and then expect us to do it on our own, but He placed His Holy Spirit within us, that bears witness and gives power to this new life within us.
Now the Word exhorts us that even as in times past we gave life to the flesh we do so no more, but now we give place and give life to the Spirit of God and by this same Spirit that abides within us we put to death the deeds of the flesh that we may live out of the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.  Our bodies are no longer the instruments of sin, but of righteousness to express and communicate His life that now abides within us.  Our soul is now being transformed into the image and likeness of Him who indwells our spirit.  Our outward man is now becoming the expression and instrument of that life giving force, power and righteousness that abides within us.
We are no longer are working under the fallacy of taking an old unredeemed life and body and making good and acceptable enough to worthy.  We have already seen through the law that this doesn’t work, but Christ comes within us by faith we accept and receive Him to transform us from the inside out by His righteousness and by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit within us.
People of God, let us lay hold of the identity that Christ has imparted into us, for our lives are hid in Him and as the Father looks upon us He sees us through the righteousness of His Son who is now our life and our righteousness.  Stop seeing yourself after the flesh and the natural man and start identifying with who the Father says you are.  Stop embracing the lie of the enemy and start embracing the truth of your God.
We may still see that we have shortcomings, issues and areas we know aren’t lining up with the Word of God, but rather than condemning ourselves, let us press into Him the more in those areas that He may be Lord of All.  He loves and accepts us in spite of ourselves, but He also loves us too much to leave us the way we were.  So Father we renounce the works of darkness that still try to operate in our lives and we embrace the Spirit of life that is dispelling all the darkness that once had dominion.  “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13)”  “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (Romans 8:37)”

Blessings,
kent