The Answer Is In Jesus Christ Our Lord

Wednesday, May 29, 2013                   Romans 7:24-25

The Answer Is In Jesus Christ Our Lord

Many years ago the owners of the Boston Celtics basketball team went public and sold stock in their company. My buddy Jimmy Bentley and I bought one share each in the storied basketball franchise. A short time later I was telling a friend about my purchase as we were riding in my car. From the backseat I heard the voice of my seven year old daughter, Tammy: “Dad do we own the Boston Celtics?” Her assumption, quite correctly, was that if I had bought the stock, then as my daughter she owned it also. Her statement revealed the essence of the union Abba seeks with His children. When we are in union with Abba, what is true of Jesus is true of us.

John Wesley loved the word holiness. He talked about scriptural holiness, holiness of the heart and holiness of life. Many people mistakenly think holiness has to do with rigid laws or rules, which through obedience, make a person holy. Not so; holiness is the state of being. As Christians, we know that our state of being, our acceptance by God, comes as a gift of God’s grace, through faith in Jesus. The definition that I think best fits John Wesley’s use of the word holiness is a state of being in harmony with God. Living in harmony with God is life in Christ. Living in harmony with God is union with the furious longing of God. Living in harmony with God is hearing God call “'Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come” and answering, “Yes Abba, I am coming to you.”

The great mystery to living life in Christ is that we seem to be in a constant state of almost and not yet. When I have been in worship settings with my friend Robin Mark, I have noticed how often he needs to adjust the keys on the neck of his guitar. Keeping his guitar strings in proper tension is essential to the guitar making beautiful music. So it is with us. We are reaching for the proper tension between grace and responsibility, between grace and self-discipline.

We can vacillate between singing with the Apostle Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”; and singing with the misguided, “should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?” (Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:1). Some days I can find myself in near ecstasy as I sing along with a praise song and later the same day my strongest longing is just to hide in a cave. I take comfort from Paul who also experienced days when he was compelled to cry out, “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” (Romans 7:24).

Because of the enormous vitality and strength of God seeking union with us, on those vacillating days we too can shout from the roof tops with Paul, “Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25a).

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  In addition to this BLOG they are distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com. The Kindle version will follow soon.

·        The second edition First Think – Then Pray has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.