Are you saying that since you are totally forgiven you can just go out and do anything you want? Anytime the grace of God is discussed, the critics drone away with this ridiculous question. All it does is betray their shallow understanding of salvation.
In Christ, we have received much more than forgiveness. We have been made alive so that we could walk in the newness of life led and guided by God’s Holy Spirit. Is God’s Spirit going to lead you to sin? To the person who believes that salvation is nothing more than the forgiveness of sins, freedom doesn’t make sense. So they ask the question.
The question isn’t new. Paul was hit with it almost everywhere he traveled. He gave an alarming answer to these critics in 1 Corinthians 6:12: “everything is permissible to me.” Yes, he was free to submit to the desires of the flesh. And so are you. But what was more important to Paul was that in Christ he was free to submit to the desires of the Spirit. And guess what? You are too. Both are permissible, but only one is profitable.
Here is the real issue. When we give in to the desires of the flesh we put ourselves under the control of sin. For the child of God, this doesn’t make sense. Paul didn’t want to be mastered by anything. He had had enough of that as a lost person. He wanted to live his life under the control of the Holy Spirit and experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control.
We are not independent beings, we are dependent. But God has given us the freedom to choose who or what we will depend upon at any given moment. Who is in control? That is the question we should be asking. When we submit to the desires of the Spirit, we will experience the abundant life Jesus promised. Who is in control of your life?
Category: Life
Forgiveness
God remembers your sins no more. I don’t know about you, but when the lights came on concerning this truth, my life changed.
For the longest time, it seemed everywhere I went, or whatever I tried to do, guilt was right there with me, haunting me and toying with my mind. My sins weren’t the stuff of legend, but they were sins just the same and they (I) deserved to be punished. But when, how? I didn’t have the answer, only the sobering thought that some day God was going to punish me.
Even though I knew of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, forgiveness was not a reality. I wasn’t even convinced that it was a possibility. I wondered if God was willing to forgive me at all. I pleaded with Him, asked Him into my life countless times, but still guilt kept hanging around, until…
Hebrews 10. There, I found out exactly what Jesus’ sacrifice did for me. His work on the cross cleansed me, took away my sins, made me holy and perfect in God’s sight, and fulfilled the old covenant on my behalf. And this just blows my mind: Jesus’ death erased my sins from God’s memory.
Oh, the relief I felt knowing that my sins had been forgiven once and for all, and then to be unshackled from the guilt and shame. They kept telling me I could never go into the throne of grace, even though the door was wide open. But no more, forgiveness is mine. I’ve entered in. How about you?
The Change Begins
Paul had it all wrong. Not just a little wrong mind you. He missed God’s purpose and plan altogether.
He knew the OT Scriptures, but He missed the Author. He embraced the law but was totally at odds with its intended purpose. He was a staunch apologist for the Jewish way of life and a leader of the leaders, but he was blind to the real blessing of being a descendant of Abraham.
It doesn’t make sense that he was so far off the mark. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, born of the tribe of Benjamin. He even claimed to be faultless as to legalistic righteousness. With this pedigree, God’s purposes should have been clear to him, and he thought that they were. His approval of the stoning of Stephen proved otherwise.
Something radical happened to Paul on his way to Damascus. In a blinding light, the voice from heaven asked the question that stopped Paul dead in his tracks; “Why are you persecuting me?” The truth became clear; this Jesus he was persecuting was both Lord and God. In that moment, Paul’s self-effort melted into faith, and salvation was his. He was alive in Christ.
And then the change began. Three years in the Arabian Desert reordered his mindset, specifically his understanding of the Law. The following verses detail the changes that took place in him.
- “I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death” (Romans 7:10).
- “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin” (Romans 3:20).
- “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 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” (Galatians 2:19, 20).
- “He has made us competent as ministers of the New Covenant–not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).
Paul tried to live for God, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t do it through observing the law. And then he experienced the grace of God. He was made alive, and dramatic changes followed. Jesus’ love and mercy turned a blasphemer into a preacher, changed an enemy into a friend, and transformed the chief of sinners into a saint. That is the power of the gospel.
How has this Gospel changed you?
Here's What Happened
What happened to you the moment you were saved? Each of us has a unique story to tell in response to this question. These stories are powerful and deeply moving. Today, however, I raise the question not to prompt personal testimonies, but to direct us to God’s work in our lives. In other words, what would He say happened to us the moment we were saved?
Although the list below is not an exhaustive one, it does show the magnitude of this great salvation you have received in Christ Jesus.
- God made you alive together with Christ (This was the subject of the first two posts). Paul explains in Ephesians 2:4, 5 and Colossians 2:11-14.
- He transferred you out of the kingdom of darkness and placed you into His kingdom : “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13, 14).
- He added you to His body, the church of Jesus Christ: “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body–whether Jews of Greeks, slave or free–and we were all given the one Spirit to drink” (1 Corinthians 12:12, 13). “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is part of it” (1Corinthians 12:27).
- God declared you to be His child: “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!” (1 John 3:1).
- He sent His Spirit to live in you: “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father'” (Galatians 4:6). “To 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” (Colossians 1:27).
As you can tell from these few verses, being saved is a big deal. It is much more than receiving a ticket for entry into heaven when you die, or even forgiveness of sins here and now. What happened to you and me at that moment of salvation is monumental.
We weren’t aware of all that happened. We simply responded to the message concerning Christ. When I did, I gained a sense of purpose in life. For the first time, I felt like I was anchored, that I knew I belonged. You may have experienced peace or freedom, or felt that you had been cleansed and a mountain of guilt and shame removed. You may have been overwhelmed by God’s unconditional love and acceptance.
All these experiences are real and genuine because Christ came to live in us. We are different, new creatures according to the Bible. What happened to us is a story worth telling.
First Life, Then Change
I grew up reciting the Apostle’s Creed every Sunday. “The third day He arose again from the dead”; I affirmed this statement with reverential gusto. But outside the confines of the sanctuary it had little meaning to me. I had never reasoned that God actually had power over death, my spiritual death. Quite frankly, I didn’t even know that I was dead in sin.
The summer before my seventh grade year, the death of Jesus overwhelmed me. It was the last night of church youth camp. The pastor graphically portrayed the crucifixion. My heart ached and tears rolled down my cheeks as I realized Christ died for me. Right then and there, I knew I needed Jesus. I prayed and thanked Him for dying for me.
I asked Him to come into my life to help me become the best person I could be. The irony is that my life got worse. Temptations and peer pressures got the best of me. I wanted to be God’s guy. I tried valiantly, but life kept spiraling out of control. The things I wanted to do, I couldn’t. The things I didn’t want to do, I did. I wondered, “Why isn’t God helping me be a better person?
Jesus wasn’t interested in making me a little better. He was not marketing the latest self-improvement program. That is what I was looking for, but self-improvement is not what I needed. Jesus’ work is this: to take someone dead in sin and make him eternally alive.
News that a close friend had taken a drug overdose stirred a sense of desperation in me. I was on the same path. Something had to change.
I started attending a Bible study in Atlanta. Dan DeHann was the teacher. I liked him, and I listened to what he had to say. His message on Colossians 2 answered my heart’s cry. It was so clear that I wondered why I had never seen it before. Here was the verse that connected: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins” (Colossians 2:13).
What this verse taught me boggled my mind. And it still does. God made me alive together with Christ. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead, God directed toward me. I was raised spiritually to walk in the newness of life. Until that moment, Paul’s words to the Colossians were meaningless to me. I had made mistakes, committed sins, but still I was basically okay — a good kid, just off track. My hope was that Jesus could help me get back on track and make me the person I wanted to be. The problem was that the “me” I wanted to improve was actually dead in sin.
Admitting my spiritual death lifted a huge burden. I no longer had to try to fix something that was unfixable. However, this admission was frightful. Death is final, the end. It is unchangeable. No amount of human effort or ingenuity can reverse this sinister state. Mankind has tried, but to no avail. Dead is dead, and that is what I was spiritually. Control of my destiny was out of my hands. Life had to come from another source.
The Bible declares that God has power over death. That first Easter was a glorious, earth-shaking demonstration. This truth authored a belief inside of me that God could raise me to life. And He did. Resurrection is Jesus’ story, and through faith in the resurrected One it became my story.
Change wasn’t what I needed. I needed life. In my mind, it was first change, then life. God’s ways are not ours. With Him, it is first life then change.
You may be tired of the struggle to improve, to make your life better. You’ve asked God a thousand times or more for help, but nothing changes. Perhaps it’s time to step into the faith of Abraham and experience the reality of resurrection.