We Have Peace With God

Friday, June 28, 2013                 We Have Peace With God

“Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.”

Romans 5:1

In our journey seeking the life in Christ as our way of life, chapters five through eight of Paul’s letter to the Romans are vitally important. These precious chapters not only show us the new way of living in the Spirit (Romans 7:6), they are the very foundation of our life in Christ. These chapters set forth the practical application of the Christian’s identification with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection and ascension. Over and over again we see 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. God did this by providing a way for us to die to our old life apart from Him, and then He gave us our new identity in Christ by uniting our newborn spirit with his. (See also 1 Corinthians 6:17 and Galatians 2:20)

Paul begins his exposition with an incredible statement: “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory” (Romans 5:1-2). Do you remember the silly witticism, “God created us in His image, and we returned the favor?”  Unfortunately, it is really more than a truism. There is a huge human tendency to reduce God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, to something just slightly larger than humankind. To fully drink in Paul’s affirmation, “we have peace with God,” we need to stand back and consider the attributes of God.

Psalm 135 is helpful in this regard. The psalmist begins with an imperative statement, “Praise the Lord! Praise the name of the Lord! Praise him, you who serve the Lord.” The psalmist then identifies many of God’s virtues, or attributes, using words such as good, great, sovereign, defender, just, faithful, eternal, and alive. There are many, many other places in Scripture where the writers identified God’s attributes. Because it is far easier to diminish the enormity of our God, I have found it vitally important to make time to ponder the wonder and vastness of His infinite, eternal existence. To this end, I often go to Colossians 1:15-20 and ponder the Supremacy of Christ. Then, when my cup is overflowing with the wonder of God, our Abba, I can begin to appreciate Paul’s powerful affirmation, “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory”

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.

Life Transforming Grace

Thursday, June 27, 2013   Life Transforming Grace

“In him we live and move and have our being”

Acts 17:28

When the Apostle Paul was speaking to the philosophers in Athens, he described his relationship with Christ as, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) Paul is describing life in Christ. This way of life contrasts sharply with the superficial, cheap grace Paul had in mind when he asked a rhetorical question in his letter to the Christians in Rome: “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? (Romans 6:1).

The grace of God is very good when it keeps you longing to go deeper, but it can be as dangerous as a diet of sugar if does not become life transforming. John Wesley modeled this when he described his “heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” Wesley’s initial touch of grace led him to the assurance of his right standing with God. But he did not stop there. He knew he had received an inner holiness of heart, the gift of new life in Christ. He also knew the Holy Spirit wanted to transform his life, to lead him into the reality of the life in Christ as Paul described it in Philippians 2:13: “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”

The life in Christ is the way God has provided for our every need, temporal or spiritual, to be fulfilled in Christ. The riches of our life in Christ cannot be earned; they are the gift of our Father’s grace. In Christian bookstores there are as many “self-help” books encouraging us to change our life as there are in the secular bookstores. However, God does not call us to change our life. He wants to have new life, the life in Christ.  This new life in Christ 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.

When God accepts us He then exchanges our old sinful nature with the new life in Christ. There is no easy way, no shortcuts to the life in Christ. Just as Christ’s journey to become our Savior took him to the cross, so also our journey to the life in Christ will take us down the road described by Paul: “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(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.

Sometimes We Grow Weary

Wednesday, June 26, 2013         Sometimes We Grow Weary

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV

“Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Wouldn’t it be nice if that were true? The part about ‘new life has begun” I can grasp, but the “old life is gone,” not so much. For me it seems my old life, my old habits, my old way of thinking are never too far behind me, and on some days they seem to be front and center. Actually, the Apostle Paul addressed this earlier in chapter five when he wrote, “We grow weary in our present bodies” (2 Corinthians 5:2). I believe this weariness comes from the baggage we carry on our journey to make the life in Christ our way of life.

This journey of transformation, by the renewing of our mind, is at times a real struggle because the 100 million bits of new information gathered by our five senses each second must contend with our memory before we make a decision. Obviously, the vast majority of this information processing takes place subconsciously and our past experiences have great influence over how our mind processes new information. These experiences shape how we respond, or react, in our journey. Because at times we do grow weary in this process of unlearning old habit patterns and replacing them with the new way of living in the Spirit, we want to remember that it is possible for us to do through training that which is impossible to do by trying real hard.

Much of our difficulty comes through the tyranny of our emotions. Past failures, hurts and disappointments can exert a powerful influence over our ability to choose obedience when the Holy Spirit is leading us to engage in new relationships and opportunities for witness and service. We can learn to step back, and reflect on how we are processing new information to be sure we are not allowing past experiences to out-weigh present realities in our decision- making.

During times when it seems our emotions may be leading us to respond with fear to the Lord’s leading, we can also remember that as followers of Jesus, we are called to be men and women of action: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV). As disciples called to action, we can learn to discern when the Holy Spirit is leading us to engage our environment or when our emotions are leading us to stay seated.

The Holy Spirit always leads us in a manner fully consistent with Scripture. Therefore as we are learning to discern God’s leading from the responses of our flesh to our environment, we want to fully rely on Scripture.

  

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(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.

I Want To Know Christ

Tuesday, June 25, 2013             I Want To Know Christ

“I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.”

Philippians 3:10a

In our journey to make the life in Christ our way of life, we walk by faith not by sight. Our focus is not on our strength, our ingenuity, our wisdom; our focus is always on Jesus.

In our journey to make the life in Christ our way of life, we are sensitive to God’s time, not our watch or our calendar. It’s not our agenda, but God’s agenda that orders our steps. 

In our journey to make the life in Christ our way of life, we don’t need a change purse so we can pay our way with good deeds, as though we were paying a toll. Our acceptance by God has been secured by Jesus, and our tolls for the journey have been pre-paid by Jesus.

In our journey to make the life in Christ our way of life, we do not need to fret over trying to understand God’s will for our lives. Sometimes on our journey, we get side-tracked because we think God’s plan for our life is more complicated than it is. We strive to know God’s specific will for our life’s profession, our church membership, who we’ll marry and where will we live. God may well lead us to discernment of these incidentals to our life, but God’s ultimate purpose for our life, His will, is much simpler to grasp.

When God first begin interacting with human kind He said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us” (Genesis 1:26a). This original purpose of God for humankind has not changed. The writers of the New Testament affirmed this over and over:

“Oh, my dear children! I feel as if I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives” (Galatians 4:19);

“For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory” (Colossians 3:3-4);

“And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires” (2 Peter 1:4);

“And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory” (Colossians 1:27b).

How is God’s purpose realized in our lives? The Apostle Paul answers for all of us: “I want to know Christ” (Philippians 3:10a). Graham Kendrick’s song, Knowing You, which is based on Philippians 3, helps us order our lives to know Jesus.

All I once held dear, built my life upon,

All this world reveres and wars to own;

All I once thought gain I have counted loss,

Spent and worthless now compared to this.

Chorus:

   Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You

   There is no greater thing.

   You’re my all, You’re the best,

   You’re my joy, my righteousness,

   And I love you Lord.

2- Now my heart’s desire is to know You more,

To be found in You and known as Yours

To possess by faith what I could not earn

All surpassing gift of righteousness

Chorus 

3- Oh to know the power of Your risen life,

And to know You in Your sufferings;

To become like You in Your death, my Lord,

So with You to live and never die.

Chorus 

Sē’lah 

<><  <><  <><  <><

(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.