Zephaniah 3:17

Below are two renderings of Zephaniah 3:17.

First, from the King James Version of the Bible:

(Zep. 3:17 KJV)  The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will

rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

Second, a paraphrase of Zephaniah 3:17 from worship leader and song writer Dennis Jerrigan:

(Zep. 3: 17 Dennis Jerrigan) "The eternal self existent God, the God who is three in one, He who dwells in the center of your being is a powerful, valiant warrior. He has come to set you free, to keep you safe and to bring you victory. He is cheered and He beams with exceeding joy and takes pleasure in your presence. He has engraved a place for himself in you and there He quietly rests in His love and affection for you.

He cannot contain Himself of the thought of you and with the greatest of joy spins around wildly in anticipation over you and has placed you above all other creations and in the highest place in His priorities. In fact He shouts and sings in triumph, joyfully proclaiming the gladness of His heart in a song of rejoicing.

All because of you. "

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Now, what if the second rendering is an accurate interpretation of Zephaniah 3:17?

If it is in fact an accurate interpretation and you believed it, how might your life be different?

"The Return of The Prodigal Son"

"... God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. Nothing between us and God, our faces shinning with the brightness of his face. And so we are transformed much like the Messiah, our lives becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him."

The Message, 2 Corinthians 3: 16ff

 

 Henri Nouwen, in his book, "The Return of The Prodigal Son", says, "If the only meaning of the story (Luke 15, The Prodigal Son) were that people sin but God forgives, I could easily begin to think of my sins as a fine occasion for God to show me forgiveness. There would be no challenge is such an interpretation. 

I would resign myself to my weaknesses and keep hoping that eventually God would close his eyes to them and let me come home, whatever I did. Such romanticism is not the message of the Gospels. "What I am called to make true is that whether I am the younger or elder son, I am the son of my compassionate Father. 

I am an heir. . . . as son and heir I am to become  successor. I am destined to step into my Father's place and offer to others the same compassionthat he has offered me. 

The return to the Father is ultimately the challenge to become the Father. . . .

"I know how much I long to return and be held safe, but do I really want to be son and heir with all that that implies? Being in the Father's house requires that I make the Father's life my own and become transformed in his image."

The Exchanged Life Part 3 of 3

You will not experience the riches of your New Life in Christ until you experience the Exchanged Life. In Christian bookstores there are as many “self help” books encouraging you to change your life as there are in the secular bookstores. God does not call us to change our life. He calls us to Exchange our life. God’s will for you is not a self-improvement program – it is a Resurrection Program. It is NEW LIFE! It is expressed in the terms of a total change in identity. The Christians in the Middle Ages understood this. When a person came for baptism, they were given a new name – usually from the Bible – and thus came the tradition of referring to your first name as your Christian Name. Their new name signified their new identity as the beloved child of God.

Jesus Christ identified Himself with us in our spiritual death to self in order that we might be identified with Him in His resurrection; and thus, an Exchange takes place. We give God all that we are, -- spiritually dead, guilty sinners and Christ gives us all that He is, -- Resurrected life, forgiveness, righteousness, acceptance.

In this new identity Christ becomes our life. Because Christ is our life, God, our Father, declares that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. He further attests that this righteousness, since it was given to us as a gift, is not based on our behavior. We are not his righteousness or new creation because of what we did, or we are doing, or what we have refrained from doing. Rather, it is because of what He has done in uniting us to Christ in death, burial, resurrection, and enthronement.

While the foundation for the Exchanged Life is found in Romans 5-8, Paul points to it and gives examples of this new life in Christ through out the Book of Romans.

My personal mission statement is to “Seek the Life in Christ as my Way of Life.” This statement is inspired by the New English Bible’s translation of Philippians 2: 5, “Let your bearings for one another arise out of your life in Christ.”

That is what I want for my life.

The Exchanged Life - Part 2

If it is possible for God to transform your life to be like Jesus, how do you get there? The answer is, “The Exchanged Life.”

I believe The Exchanged Life is the pure gospel message. It is a way of understanding that God calls me to exchange my old sinful life for Christ's pure, holy, righteous life. The exchanged life truths are throughout the New Testament; however, the foundation for the exchanged life is found in Romans 5-8, which sets forth a practical application of the Christian’s identification with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection and ascension.

"The term 'exchanged life' refers to the Christian’s core identity in Christ. The Christian is a new creation, born of God. They are not what they were before – all things are new.

The missionary J. Hudson Taylor made the term 'exchanged life' popular through his testimony of how God made him a new man.( Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, page 154) " The word "exchanged" means that God has made it possible for us to exchange our complete inability to live the Christian life for Christ's total sufficiency to live His life through us. He did this by exchanging our old life apart from God for our new identity in Christ and by uniting our newborn spirit with His (I Corinthians 6:17; Galatians 2:20).

Simply put, The Great Exchange is the way God has provided for every need, temporal or spiritual, to be fulfilled in Christ. We all have core needs to be loved, to be accepted and to have worth – a sense that it matters we are alive. All of our efforts to meet these needs out of our own strength and resources will never satisfy those needs. The Good News is that God has met all of our needs through His riches and glory in Christ Jesus.

The Exchanged Life - Part 1

The Exchanged Life

“If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

Sometimes it is fun to have no where to go and all day to get there. But on the things that matter in life, it is essential to know where you are going and how to get there.

The evangelist that is intent on leading people to the saving knowledge of Jesus is fond of asking, “If you were to die tonight do you know where you are going?” If you were to ask a Christian, “Where are you going” the most popular answer would be, “Heaven.” However, as a pastor I am fond of asking my flock, “If you wake up in the morning do you know what you are going to do to build for the Kingdom of God?” The point is that it is vitally important for the Christian to be as secure in God’s will for them in this life as it is to be secure in your hope of eternal life.

God’s intended destination for the Christian is that we would be transformed to become like Jesus. That is, in our daily life, our words, our actions, our thoughts and our deeds would be the same as if Jesus were in our place. Most Christians when they hear this dismiss it as a pie in the sky silly ambition because they fully appreciate that there is positively no way they can achieve such a lofty goal. Exactly. That is the conclusion God wants you to reach. Then you are ready to consider what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.” (Mark 10:27 New Living Translation)

Seeking the Life in Christ

I began a journey on April 25, 2011 to read the New Testament in one year. I completed the journey yesterday.  As you have read the New Testament along with me I know you have been encouraged by God as you have experienced the Holy Spirit speaking to you as you read. Your journaling in response to the questions at the end of each of the daily readings has allowed you to go deep into God’s Word as you seek to apply it to your daily lives. It is my hope and prayer this experience will continue to be renewed in your devotional life. Several of my readers have told me they intend to begin reading the New Testament again, but this time in a different Bible translation. That’s an excellent plan.

What’s next for my BLOG? I will continue to post a daily message relating to our life in grace and beginning May 1, 2012, I will be reading the Book of Psalms. The Psalms are where Jesus went for meditation and prayer. If you want to pray like Jesus, learn to pray the Psalms. Perhaps more than any other place in the Old Testament, Jesus is revealed in the Psalms. One of my main goals in this devotional reading of the Psalms is to look for the revelation of Jesus.  

I will post my daily devotion as I read through the Book of Psalms.

Also, my BLOG will continue to be available by subscription through Amazon Kindle.

It has been a joy for me to be in dialog with my readers as together we read the New Testament. I look forward to continuing our dialog as we journey through the Book of Psalms. 

Selah,

 
Pastor Alex Knight

Christ Church

Bradenton, Florida